ENHANCING THE YIELD AND QUALITY OF OILSEED CROPS IN NEPAL THROUGH APPLICATION OF SULPHUR FERTILIZERS


Bikram Nepali and Devashish Bhandari

DOI: 10.26480/bda.02.2019.10.11

ABSTRACT
Sulphur is a dynamic source to produce quality seed having higher marketable value. It is an important constituent of plant protein i.e. cysteine, cystine and methionine for the growth and development of quality seed. Real-time application of recommended dose of Sulphur fertilizer during the grain filling stage revealed higher crop yield with seed containing Sinigrin, Gluconapin, and progoitrin protein as indicator of greater quality seed. Adequate application of Sulphur facilitates the nitrogenous component to metabolites into nitrate easily which, promotes the chlorophyll present in the leaf, plant height, dry matter, leaf per plant, greater seed weight and mostly important the flavor in seed. However, the lack of knowledge about the importance of Sulphur fertilizers among the smallholder farmers in Nepal, productivity and marketable quality of the oil seed crop were decreasing. Weak communication of farmer among the knowledge provider and input suppliers revealing the crop into starving soil, remoting traditional acknowledge with better farming for greater yield. Without ensuring the quality of the crop, farmers were applying greater amount of chemical fertilizer for promising higher amount of crop yield. farmers were more oriented toward profit rather than quality.

KEYWORDS
Sulphur, Cysteine and methionine, quality, soil fertility, crop yield