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Plant Science Today (PST)

Research Articles

Vol. 13 No. sp3 (2026): Climate-Weed Nexus: Innovations for Sustainable Farming (CWIS 2025)

Productivity enhancement in sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.) with PSAP and nano urea under tropical conditions

DOI
https://doi.org/10.14719/pst.13468
Submitted
31 December 2025
Published
19-05-2026

Abstract

Nutrient management plays a crucial role in yield and productivity of sweet potato. Nutrient application as per crop requirement and proper method is very much essential to bridge the yield gap. In this background, a field experiment was conducted at the Instructional Farm, College of Agriculture, Vellayani, Thiruvananthapuram to enhance the productivity of sweet potato with potassium salt of active phosphorus (PSAP) and nano urea.  The experiment was laid out in factorial factorial randomised complete block design (RCBD) with 2 levels of recommended dose of nutrients (l1: 75 % NPK and l2: 50 % NPK) and four combinations of foliar application (FA) with PSAP and nano urea along with soil drenching (SD) of PSAP (n1: Nano urea at 0.2 % at 30 Days after planting (DAP) and PSAP at 0.2 % at 45 DAP ; n2: Nano urea at 0.2 % at 30 DAP and PSAP at 0.4 % at 45 DAP; n3: Nano urea at 0.4 % at 30 DAP and PSAP at 0.2 % at 45 DAP; n4: Nano urea at 0.4 % at 30 DAP and PSAP at 0.4 % at 45 DAP. Soil drenching was given uniformly to all treatments at the rate of 0.4 % at 15 DAP except Kerala Agricultural University package of practices (KAU POP) (control). Among the treatments, l2n4 recorded significantly higher average tuber weight (258 g), marketable tuber yield (17.27 t ha-1) and tuber yield (19.93 t ha-1). From the study it could be concluded that soil application of 50 % of recommended dose of NPK with soil drenching of PSAP at 0.4 % at 15 DAP supplemented with foliar application of nano urea at 0.4 % at 30 DAP and PSAP at 0.4 % at 45 DAP could enhance productivity by 37.64 % in sweet potato.

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