Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

INFLUENCE OF S AND ZN ON PHYSICO-CHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF SOIL, NUTRIENT UPTAKE AND GROWTH PERFORMANCE OF JATROPHA (JATROPHA CURCAS) IN WASTE LAND OF EASTERN U.P., INDIA

S.S. Verma, R.S.Singh, S.K. Shahi, P. K. Mishra and Shobhit Singh

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted in 2007–08 to 2008-09 at the waste land of Udai Pratap Autonomous College, Varanasi (U.P.) in order to find out the effect of sulphur and zinc on physico-chemical properties of soil, nutrient content and growth performance of jatropha by applying four levels of suphur (0, 15, 30 and 45 kg ha-1) and four levels of zinc (0, 2.5, 5.0 and 10.0 kg ha-1) were laid out in factorial randomized block design with three replications. Results showed that uptake of nutrients, i.e. nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulphur and zinc were significantly higher under 45 kg S and 10 kg Zn ha-1 application over other treatments. The growth of jatropha in respect to plant height and number of branches was also significantly higher with application of 45 kg S and 10 kg Zn ha-1.