Effect of Different Growth Regulators on Plant Growth and Yield of Bottle Gourd (Lagenaria siceraria L.) cv. Arka Bahar

Abstract

An experiment was conducted during 2021 to study the effect of different growth regulators on bottle gourd cv. Arka Bahar during kharif season with three growth regulators at different concentrations: Ethrel (100ppm, 200ppm, 300ppm), NAA (150 ppm, 200ppm, 250ppm) and GA3 (50ppm, 100ppm, 150ppm).Water was used as control. The growth regulators were sprayed at two and four leaf stage. All the treatments were replicated three times in a randomized block design keeping the plot size 2m×2m. Plant growth regulators treatments rendered their significant effect on almost all the growth, flowering and yield of bottle gourd. The treatment T9 GA3 150 ppm was found maximum in increasing the vine length (9.01m) whereas T3 Ethrel 200 ppm was found most effective in terms of days to first appearance of male (40.89 days) and female flower (45.44 days), node number to first male (8.11) and female flower (10.11), number of male (16.33) and female flowers (11.33) per vine, fruit diameter (8.67 cm), fruit length (39.84 cm), fruit weight (1064.28 g), number of fruits per plant (10.11), fruit yield per plant (8.72 kg), fruit yield per hectare(29.01 t/ha) The significantly higher gross return (Rs 348120/ha), Net profit (Rs 269898/ha) and B: C ratio (4.45) was also recorded under ethrel 200 ppm (T3). Overall results revealed that application of ethrel 200 ppm proved to be better for different growth and yield traits in bottle gourd.