EXPLORING DIFFERENT FERTILIZER COMBINATIONS FOR POTATO GROWTH AND YIELD IN RAWALPINDI REGION OF PAKISTAN

Potato ( Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the most important tuber crops produced in Pakistan. Due to its nutritive importance, it ranks as fourth after rice, wheat and maize in the world. However, production of the crop is far below the average due to poor crop stand, soil fertility and water management practices. There is a strong need for improvement in the fair yield of potato through managed production techniques and best soil nutrient combinations. To find out the best combination of fertilizer level of NPK on growth, yield and quality of the potato crop, nine field experiments on potato crop were conducted at Rawalpindi division, Punjab Pakistan for three successive Rabi seasons during 2014-2017. Treatments consisted of four levels of N (244, 300, 356 and 412 Kg N ha -1 ), P (163, 200, 237 and 275 kg P ha -1 ) and K (136, 167, 198 and 229 Kg K ha -1 ) laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Results showed that there was no significant difference of location in terms of yield (T ha -1 ). However, mean data showed that the fertilizer combinations significantly (<0.05) affected yield and yield components of the potato crop. Among the treatments, NPK level (412, 275 and 229 Kg ha -1 ) gave maximum (100 tuber m -2 ), potato yield (3.2 Kg m -2 ), dry matter (1.3 Kg m -2 ), while the least number of tuber m -2 (63), potato yield m -2 (2.02 Kg), dry matter yield m -2 (0.9 Kg) were recorded where combination NPK (244, 163and 136 Kg ha -1 ) were applied. From the results, it can be concluded that farming community can obtain the maximum potato yield by adopting NPK (412, 275, 229) levels of fertilizers