Effect of foliar application of amino acids on yield, economics and correlation studies of turmeric

Introduction

Curcuma longa is herbaceous plant comes under the family of Zingiberaceae, produces underground rhizomes and originated from tropical South East Asia (Guerra et al., 2020) [11] . As many species have been identified and distributed worldwide, among them, five species were In agricultural production, to obtain higher yield application of fertilizers, organic manures, growth regulators and other stimulants are very common in practise. It seems that application of organic compounds would be a promising approach which led to ecofriendly sustainable agriculture. Amino acids are essential molecules that contain nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen and have an organic side chain in their structure, a characteristic that distinguishes the different amino acids (Ibrahim et al., 2010) [15] . Foliar application through biologically active amino acids could provide a source of building blocks for protein synthesis in plants. These can play different roles in plants like stress reducing agents, source of nitrogen and hormone precursors. Sadak et al. (2014) [21] indicated that amino acid application as foliar spray significantly improved the shoot length, number of leaves per plant, fresh and dry weight of shoots, photosynthetic pigments, total carbohydrates of faba bean leaves and Liu et al. (2008) [18] in radish plants. Garlic plants produced highest plant height, bulb yield and quality with 200 ppm glutamine application (Hegazi et al., 2016) [14] . Foliar spraying of aspartic acid (50, 100 or 150 mg l -1 ) had a substantial effect on the vegetative growth and yield of field bean (Amin et al., 2014) [2] . Potato tuber yield and dry matter, starch and protein content has been increased by foliar application of glycine and lysine each at 100 ppm (Awad et al., 2007) [5] and phenyl alanine at 250 mg l -1 in hot pepper (Rashad et al., 2002) [20] .

Materials and Methods

A set of experiment was conducted by using amino acids as foliar application on turmeric at Horticultural Research Station, Mondouri, Faculty of Horticulture, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Nadia, West Bengal during 2023-24 and 2024-25. The experimental field was located at of 23.5 °N latitude, 89 °E longitude having an average altitude of 9.75 m above MSL. The experiment comprising of 21 treatments with three replications under completely randomised block design. The individual plot having the size of 3m×1m and 30cm×25cm which accommodates 40 number of plants. The amino acids (glutamine, lysine, glycine, phenyl alanine and aspartic acid) were applied three times at 60, 90 and 120 days after planting. Application of FYM @ 25 t ha -1 and recommended dose of fertilisers (NPK -150:60:150 kg ha -1 ) were applied during land preparation and crop growth period for all treatments including control. Intercultural operations such as irrigation, mulching, weeding, earthing up and were done at regular intervals. The projected or total yield of rhizomes per hectare was calculated based on plot yield, considering 75% area occupied by turmeric in the present experiment (Anon,1995). Total curcumin production per hectare also calculated through multiplication of projected yield with dry recovery percentage and curcumin content and finally expressed in kg ha -1 . The economic assessment for the different treatments was done based on cost of production, gross return and net return considering the cost of inputs and market price of the produce during the period of experimentation (Shively, 2012) [24] .

Treatment details T1 -Glutamine @ 50 ppm T12 -Glycine @ 200 ppm T2 -Glutamine @ 100 ppm T13 -Aspartic acid @ 50 ppm T3 -Glutamine @ 150 ppm T14 -Aspartic acid @ 100 ppm T4 -Glutamine @ 200 ppm T15 -Aspartic acid @ 150 ppm T5 -Lysine @ 50 ppm T16 -Aspartic acid @ 200 ppm T6-Lysine @ 100 ppm T17 -Phenylalanine @ 50 ppm T7-Lysine @ 150 ppm T18 -Phenylalanine @ 100 ppm T8-Lysine @ 200 ppm T19 -Phenylalanine @ 150 ppm T9-Glycine @ 50 ppm T20 -Phenylalanine @ 200 ppm T10 -Glycine @ 100 ppm T21 -Control (Water spray) T11 -Glycine @ 150 ppm

Statistical analysis

The data was subjected to statistical analysis using variance techniques as describe by Gomez and Gomez (1984) [10] . The significance of different treatments was tested by 'F' test at probability level of 0.05 and critical difference (CD) was calculated at 5%. Correlation coefficient analysis of vegetative, yield and quality characters of turmeric was done by following Karl Pearson correlation method using R software (version: 4.4.1).

Results and Discussion

Projected yield and total curcumin yield

The data presented in Table . 1 revealed that significant variations were observed with respect to yield of turmeric on foliar applications of amino acids during the both years and in pooled analysis. The highest projected yield was associated with glutamine 200 ppm (38.29 t ha -1 ) treatment, which was on par with aspartic acid 200 ppm (37.34 t ha -1 ), followed by glycine 200 ppm (36.76 t ha -1 ) and the lowest yield was observed in control (24.61 t ha -1 ). The yield was increased with the concentration of the amino acids might be due higher metabolic reactions of amino acids and increased photosynthetic rate. The yield was recorded more at high level of concentration in five amino acids. These findings were in good conformity with the investigation of Turfan and Duzel (2023) [26] , Hassan et al. (2020) [13] , Khattab et al. (2016) [17] and Abd-Elkader et al. (2020) [1] who observed enhancement of yield on tomato, cassava, gladiolus and dahlia, respectively. The highest total curcumin yield (600.17 kg ha -1 ) was observed in glutamine 200 ppm, which was followed by aspartic acid 200 ppm (577.67 kg ha -1 ) and while the lowest was associated with the untreated control (257.46 kg ha -1 ).

Correlation coefficients among vegetative, yield and quality characters of turmeric

The correlation coefficients related to fifteen characters were depicted in Table . 2. The plant height showed highly significant and positive correlation with number of tillers (0.95), leaf number (0.93), leaf length (0.92) and leaf breadth (0.85), weight of clump (0.95), weight of primary fingers (0.90), weight of secondary fingers (0.66), plot yield and projected yield per hectare (0.92). It has showed positive association with quality characters like curcumin (0.90), oleoresin (0.83), total phenols (0.85) and dry recovery (0.81) and chlorophyll content (0.79). Number of tillers displayed significantly positive association with weight of clump (0.97), number of leaves and leaf length (0.91), leaf breadth (0.87), primary (0.90) and secondary finger weight (0.67), plot and projected yield (0.93). Leaf number also showed highly positive association with leaf breadth (0.88) and leaf length (0.89), clump weight (0.90), weight of primary (0.86) and secondary fingers (0.64) and it has shown same level of positive significant relationship with plot and projected yield (0.88). Highly positive and significant correlation was observed between weight of clump and yield per plot and projected yield (0.93). It showed highly significant positive correlation with weight of both primary and secondary finger, plant height, leaf number and quality attributes like dry recovery, total phenols, curcumin and oleoresin content. Rhizome yield per plot had highly positive and significant association with clump weight (0.93), weight of secondary finger (0.64) weight of primary finger (0.87), plant height (0.92), leaf breadth (0.81) and leaf number (0.88). This signifies that by improving these characters, rhizome yield can also be increased. Rhizome quality characters like dry recovery, curcumin, oleoresin and total phenols content as well as leaf chlorophyll content also showed highly positive relationship with growth and yield characters. According to Shashidhar et al. (1997) [23] , the correlation coefficients between most of the growth and yield characteristics were significantly positive and the results were in consistent with those of Tomar et al. (2005) [25] . The results are in good agreement with findings of Jalgaonkar et al. (1990) [16] , who found a strong positive relationship between secondary finger weight and rhizome production. Therefore, it is possible to draw the conclusion that plant vigour and yield components influence the yield and quality parameters of rhizomes.

Influence of foliar application of amino acids on economics of turmeric cultivation

The findings obtained from Table . 3, indicated the marked variations among different amino acid concentrations with respect to cost of production, gross return, net return and B:C ratio during both the years. As per mean data, the maximum cost of production of Rs. 223,995/-was noticed in glycine 200 ppm, followed by glycine 150 ppm (Rs. 220,075/-) as compared to control 206,355/-). In case of gross return, the highest value (Rs. 574,350/-) was observed in glutamine 200 ppm, followed by aspartic acid 200 ppm (Rs. 560,100/-) and lowest gross return in control (Rs. 369,150/-). In respect of net return, the maximum value of Rs. 364,131/-registered in glutamine 200 ppm, followed by aspartic acid 200 ppm (Rs. 350,223/-). The lowest value was associated with control (Rs. 162,795/-). Highest B: C ratio was noticed in glutamine 200 ppm (1.73) followed by aspartic acid 200 ppm (1.67) and the lowest was observed in control (0.79) treatment. Amino acids directly or indirectly stimulate the vital physiological processes within the plant and increases chlorophyll content in the leaves leading to increased plant growth rate. The enhancement effects for amino acids due to their positive role in protein assimilation, which is important for cell formation and consequently increase growth and dry matter production. According to Sarojnee et al. (2009) [22] , amino acids can increase uptake of nutrients and water, enhance the photosynthetic rate and dry matter partitioning and hence increase yield and quality of crops. Amin et al. (2011) [3] recorded that foliar application of glutamine at 200 mg l -1 or putrescine 100 mg l -1 significantly increased the bulb dimensions, yield and quality of onion. Glutamine in plant nitrogen metabolism, acting as a primary transporter of organic nitrogen within plant tissues. In cassava, the application of glutamine at 200 mg l -1 increased both tuber number and tuber weight (El-Bassiony et al., 2023) [8] . Treatment with 200 ppm glutamine resulted in significant increase in yield approximately 60% compared to the untreated control (Hegazi et al., 2016) [14] . In sweet basil, foliar application of glycine (250-500 mg l -1 ) enhanced growth, chlorophyll content and uptake of N, K, Mg, Fe and Zn.

Conclusion

Amino acids application significantly increases the rhizome yield in turmeric as compared to control treatment. The yield was higher with increasing the concentration up to 200 ppm in the present investigation. Growth, yield and quality parameters were showed highly positive correlation and growth characters significantly associated with the yield of rhizome. Considering yield, total curcumin yield and B: C ratio, the foliar application of glutamine 200 ppm proved best for higher production of turmeric, followed by aspartic acid 200 ppm. Thus, foliar application of amino in turmeric cultivation increased rhizome development and obtain greater margins of economic returns, hence can be recommended for higher production.

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