EFFECT OF PLANTING DATE AND FERTILIZER LEVELS ON THE YIELD AND QUALITY OF CAULIFLOWER CURDS

Abstract

An experiment was conducted during 2001/2002 and 2002/2003 growing seasons at Vegetable Crops Experimental Station, Abu-Ghraib to study the effect of planting date and fertilizer levels on cauliflower (cv. White Cloud). The experiment consisted of nine treatments resulted from the interaction between three planting dates 1/9, 15/9 and 1/10 and three levels of compound fertilizers NPK (27:27:0) which were 90,120 and 150 Kg/donum.The results showed that there was significant interactive effect between planting dates and fertilizer levels on average curd and total yield. Seedlings planted on 15/9 and received 150kg./donum. fertilizer gave the highest curd weight and total yield which was 2.15 kg., and 8.75 ton/donum, and 1.98kg., and 7.77 ton/donum, respectively. While seedlings on 1/9 and received 90 kg/Donum fertilizer gave the lowest curd weight and total yield which was 1.41 kg. and 6.20 ton/donum, and 1.38 kg., and 5.80 ton/donum for the two growing seasons 2001/2002, 2002/2003 , respectively.