Foliar application of enriched banana pseudostem sap influences the nutrient uptake, yield, and quality of sweet corn grown in an acidic soil

Mahammad Shariful Islam; Susilawati Kasim; Adibah Mohd Amin; Md Khairul Alam; Mst Fatima Khatun; Sharif Ahmed; Ahmed Gaber; Akbar Hossain

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0285954

Foliar application of enriched banana pseudostem sap influences the nutrient uptake, yield, and quality of sweet corn grown in an acidic soil

PLoS One. 2023 Aug 29;18(8):e0285954. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285954. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Mahammad Shariful Islam^{1

2}, Susilawati Kasim¹, Adibah Mohd Amin¹, Md Khairul Alam^{3

4}, Mst Fatima Khatun², Sharif Ahmed⁵, Ahmed Gaber⁶, Akbar Hossain⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Land Management, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia.
² Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, Gazipur, Bangladesh.
³ Centre for Sustainable Farming Systems, Future Food Institute, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
⁴ CSIRO Land and Water, Western Australia, Australia.
⁵ International Rice Research Institute, Bangladesh Office, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
⁶ Department of Biology, College of Science, Taif University, Taif, Saudi Arabia.
⁷ Division of Soil Science, Bangladesh Wheat and Maize Research Institute, Dinajpur, Bangladesh.

Abstract

Foliar fertilization is a reliable technique for correcting a nutrient deficiency in plants caused by inadequate nutrient supply to the roots in acid soil. Soluble nutrients in banana pseudostem sap might be effective to supplement chemical fertilizers. However, the limited nutrients in sole banana pseudostem sap as foliar fertilization may not meet-up the nutritional demand of the crop. Field trials were, therefore, conducted with the combination of soil-applied fertilizers with foliar spray of banana pseudostem sap to increase nutrient uptake, yield, and quality of sweet corn planted in acidic soil. Three treatments viz., 100% recommended dose of fertilizers (RD) as control (T1), 75% of RD applied in soil with foliar application of non-enriched banana pseudostem sap (T2), and 50% RD applied in soil with foliar spray of enriched banana pseudostem sap (T3) were replicated four times. The combination of soil-applied fertilizer with foliar spray of enriched banana pseudostem sap (T3) showed a significant increase in leaf area index (11.3%), photosynthesis (12%), fresh cob yield (39%), and biomass of corn (29%) over control. Besides, the 50% RD of soil fertilization with foliar spray of enriched pseudostem sap increased nutrient uptake in addition to an increase in sugar content, phenolic content, soluble protein, and amino acids of corn. Considering the economic analysis, the highest net income, BCR (3.74) and MBCR (1.25) values confirmed the economic viability of T3 treatment over the T1. The results suggest that foliar spray of enriched banana pseudostem sap can be used as a supplementary source of nutrients to enhance nutrient uptake by corn while increasing yield and minimizing chemical fertilizer use in acid soil.

Copyright: © 2023 Islam et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Fertilizers*
Musa*
Nutrients
Vegetables
Zea mays

Substances

Fertilizers

Grants and funding

The study was funded by the National Agricultural Technology Programme, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council, and Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute for providing fellowship to perform research at the Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra, Malaysia. The study was alsopartially funded by the Researchers Supporting Project number (TURSP - 2020/39), Taif University, Taif, Saudi Arabia. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.