Effects of Potassium on the Growth, Yield and Physico-chemical Properties of Three Garden Pea (Pisum sativum) Varieties

An experiment was conducted at the Horticulture Research Farm, Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University, Dinajpur, Bangladesh during November 2015 to March 2016 to find out the effects of potassium on the growth, yield and physico-chemical properties of three garden pea (Pisum sativum) varieties. The experiment comprise three Garden pea varieties viz. V1 = IPSA Motorshuti-3, V2 = Broad Bean Master Piece and V3 = BARI Motorshuti-1 and four levels of potassium viz. K0 (Control), K1 (25 kg ha-1), K2 (50 kg ha-1) and K3 and (75 kg ha-1), respectively. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design with three replications. The results of the experiment reviled that K nutrition and genotypic variation significantly (p < 0.05) determined the yield of the garden pea. Different levels of potassium had significant influences on almost all the parameters studied these three varieties. Maximum plant height (166.67 cm), branches plant-1 (7.00), pods plant-1 (39.00), sugar content (15.40%) was obtained from V1K2 (IPSA Motorshuti-3 with 50 kg K2O ha-1) treatment. Whereas highest pod length (8.533 cm), pod breadth (9.47 mm), number of seeds pod-1 (8.67), green seed weight (305.00 g), Magnesium content, (0.29%) was obtained under the treatment V2K2 (Broad Bean Masterpiece with 50 kg K2O ha-1). The maximum green pod yield (12.78 t ha-1), calcium content (0. 20%), vitamin- A (1.03 mg/kg), was obtained from V3K2 (BARI Motorshuti -1 with 50 kg K2O ha-1).