GROWTH AND YIELD OF OKRA UNDER GA3 (GIBBERELLIC ACID) FOLIAR APPLICATION AND MULTINUTRIENT NPK FERTILIZER
Keywords:
NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium), Gibberellic acid (GA3), Okra, FertilizersAbstract
A field survey was conducted during the rainy season in June to September, 2023 in the research garden of Biological Science Department of Al-Qalam University, Katsina, Nigeria. Five levels of GA3, namely; 0, 10, 15, 20 and 25 ppm were sprayed at 2 weeks after sowing. A randomized block design was used to lay out the treatments (RBD). GA3 treatments significantly increase the plant height than control plants. GA3 with 20 and 25 ppm significantly increase in terms of number of leaves. Okra treated with 15ppm showed highest weight of (94.58g) with 8 total numbers and lowest (38.5g) in 10ppm. Whereas, in Clemson spineless, the highest plant height (17.5cm) was recorded in 20ppm and the lowest height was (5.2cm) of the control in NPK. While in GA3 20ppm recorded (28.9cm) and the lowest 10cm. Okra treated with 10ppm showed the highest weight of (47.09g) with 5 total number and the lowest is 0 at 20ppm. The significant means were calculated using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) where the calculated P-value of local variety (0.003975) and (0.009687) for Clemson Spineless are lower than (0.05). This implies that, there is a significant difference in the means of all the tested parameters. Therefore, the research recommends the use of local seeds during plant and growing Okra plant.