Efficiency of Urea Super Granule Point Placement on Potato

Abstract

Urea is the most dominant form of nitrogen fertilizer being used in Bangladesh. To avoid urea N losses, point placement of urea super granule (USG) has been developed and is being popularized in the country, particularly in rice production. The objective of the present experiment was to study the suitability of applying USG deep point placement in upland vegetable crops, such as potato. The experiment was set up in two agroecological zones in Bangladesh, those being: Old Brahmaputra Floodplain at Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) farm, and Madhupur Tract at Madhupur farmer's field. Treatments used in both the experiments were the same, viz. (1) Control (-N), (2) Urea broadcast (109 kg N ha^-1), (3) USG point placed (73 kg N ha^-1) and (4) USG point placed (109 kg N ha^-1). Point placement of USG, particularly at the higher N rate, greatly increased the yield of potato tubers both at BAU farm and at farmer's field in Madhupur. The yield increases of the tubers with USG at higher N rate 109 kg N ha^-1 at BAU farm were 131.63% over control and 37.89% over urea applied broadcast (at the same N rate of 109 kg N ha^-1), while at Madhupur farmer's field the yield increases were 75.96% and 27.52%, respectively. Point placement of urea super granule (USG) appeared highly promising in increasing potato production.