Vol. 11, Issue 10 (2022)

Author(s):
Anup Pratap Singh, Vijay Bahadur, Rajneesh Srivastva, Gaurav Pratap Singh, Bhanu Prakash Singh and Ankur Pratap Singh

Abstract:
Onions are the second most important vegetable crop after tomatoes in the world, belongs to the family Alliaceae or Liliaceae. Nano particles Interaction with plants causing many morphological and physiological changes, depending on the properties of NPs. zinc oxide nano particles (ZnONPs) increase plant growth, development and quality while iron oxide nano particles (FeONPs) increase the yield. A field experiment was conducted at Department of Horticulture, Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences Prayagraj (U.P) India, during the rabi season of 2016-17. The experiment was laid out in a Factorial Randomized Block Design with 16 treatments including control consisted of 3 levels of both ZnO and FeO in 3 replications and each replicated thrice under Allahabad agro climatic conditions. The three levels of both ZnO and FeO NPs were 250 ppm, 500 ppm and 750 ppm with control (RDF) and their combinations were allotted as 16 different treatments. Observations were recorded on growth, yield and quality characters at different days intervals. Findings revealed that the treatment T8 (500 ppm ZnO + 250 ppm FeO) found best in terms of growth traits i.e. highest plant height (60.26 cm), more number of leaves (12.54), maximum leaf length (52.79 cm), maximum stand count (100%), significantly at minimum days to maturity (134 days) which combinely influenced the yield traits i.e. widest bulb diameter (7.33 cm), widest neck diameter (4.65 cm), highest average bulb weight (109 gm), highest bulb yield per plot (1.58kg) and highest total bulb yield (15.80t/ha) in treatment T8 whereas quality traits like, total soluble solid (10.44⁰Brix) and Vitamin-C (5.23 mg/100 gm) also significantly influenced with treatment T8 (500 ppm ZnO + 250 ppm FeO). The interaction between zinc oxide and iron oxide NPs had also significant effect on growth, yield and quality of onion.