EFFECT OF SOWING AND CUTTING DATES ON SOME VEGETATIVE CHARACTERS AND YIELD OF JUTE PLANT "Corchorus olitorius L." GROWN IN SOUTHERN IRAQ.

Abstract

An experiment was conducted in a farm located at Abu El-Kassib region, Basrah Governorate, during the growing season of 2004 to investigate effect of three different sowing dates and cutting on some vegetative characters and yield of Jute plant. The trial included nine treatments, i.e. the interaction between three sowing dates (10/3, 20/3 and 30/3) and three cutting dates (1/6, 15/6 and 30/6). Factorial and completely randomized block design experiment was used with three replicates.Results showed that sowing Jute seeds at the date of 30/3 gave significant increases in plant height, number of leaves, leaf width and fresh weight, percentage of leaf dry matter and yield of squared meter as compared to the sowing dates of 10/3 and 20/3. In regard to total yield, the sowing date of 30/3 gave 2.572 Kg/m2, whereas the sowing dates of 10/3 and 20/3 produced (1.557 and 1.712 Kg/m2), respectively.The cutting date of 30/6 gave significant increases in all parameters studied, except that for leaf length, over the cutting dates of 1/6 and 15/6.Significant differences were found between the interaction treatments in regard to the number of leaves, stem diameter, percentage of leaf dry matter and total yield .Total yield was found to be 2.086 Kg/m2 for cutting date of 30/6 whereas those of 1/6 and 15/6 harvest dates were (1.823 and 1.865 Kg/m2¬) respectively.