Evaluation of Some Promising Wheat Genotypes (Triticum aestivum L.) at Different Zinc Regimes for Crop Production

Zinc is essentially required for crop growth and its insufficient supply to the plants may severely limit the yield traits of a crop. A field experiment was performed during rabi season of 2009–10 and 2010–11 to evaluate the performance of different wheat genotypes under different levels of zinc namely 0 kg ZnSO 4 ha −1 , 20 kg ZnSO 4 ha −1 and 20 kg ZnSO 4 ha −1 along with foliar spray of 0.5% solution of ZnSO 4 . Genotypes responded positively in terms of tiller number, grain and biological yield, spikelet length, spikelet number, grain number and thousand-grain weight. The best response was observed with the application of 20 kg ZnSO 4 ha −1 along with foliar spray of 0.5% solution of ZnSO 4 . Zinc application brought about a maximum increase of 58.6% in tiller number, 63.7% in thousand-grain weight, 40.5% in biological yield, 66.1% in grain yield irrespective of genotypes and the year of study. Wheat genotypes exhibited a variation in their performance which has been exploited in this study. Genotypes UP-262, PBW-175, PBW-343 were found to be superior for one or the other yield contributing factors.