Standardization of mowing height and inorganic nutrient for establishment of Zoysia matrella

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to standardize the different mowing height and inorganic nutrients for better establishment of lawn grass Zoysia matrella. The experiment was laid out in Factorial randomized block design (FRBD) with 2 replications at Botanical garden, Department of Floriculture and Landscape Architecture, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. The Treatments included different mowing height (1 inch, 1.5 inch, 2 inch and 2.5 inch) and different level of inorganic nutrients viz., urea (50 g/m2, 40 g/m2, 30 g/m2, 20 g/m2) and Sulphate of potash (60 g/m2, 50 g/m2, 40 g/m2, 30 g/m2). In this experiment, observations were recorded on morphological and physiological parameters. The Morphological parameters included leaf length, internodal length, shoot length, root length, number of nodes per 10 sq cm. Physiological parameters included relative water content, total chlorophyll content and proline content. The result of this experiment was M2T3 observed better turf quality among different treatments. In the 45th and 60th day, M2T3 had highest record of leaf length (4.8 cm,2.65 cm), internodal length (2.45 cm,2.2 cm), shoot length (12.5 cm,6.7 cm), root length (4.0 cm,2.35 cm) and number of nodes per 10 cm sq (3,4 numbers) respectively. M2T3 recorded highest of relative water content (61.27%), Chlorophyll content (2.09%), and proline content (4.05 mg/g).