Foliar study on effect of iron oxide nanoparticles as an alternate source of iron fertilizer to cotton

Abstract

An experiment was carried out under pot culture to investigate the effects of different iron sources of fertilizers like iron sulphate, iron oxide and nano sized iron oxide particles viz., haematite and magnetite with different levels of concentration viz., 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 g/lit on cotton growth, development and yield of cotton. Treatments were replicated into three and foliar sprayed (20 ml per pot) on square formation (45 DAS) and boll formation (90 DAS) stages. The study showed that significant increment of plant height (37 cm), leaf area (45.4 cm2/plant), number of symbodial branches per plant (15.1), seed cotton yield (14.9 g/pot) and boll weight (3.5 g/boll) were attained due to foliar application of magnetite nanoparticles during both square and flower formation stages. It is concluded that oxide type iron nanoparticles particularly magnetite was superior than normal iron oxide on increasing plant growth parameters as well as seed cotton yield but it was onpar with sulphate type fertilizers.