Response of potato plants to foliar application of cement dust

Abstract

An experiment was conducted in the net house, Department of Botany, AMU, Aligarh, India, in 2012 to evaluate the effect of foliar application of cement dust (0.00, 0.25, 0.50, 1.00, 2.00 and 4.00 g.m-2.day-1) on plant growth, yield, biomass, photosynthetic pigments, NPK concentrations of plants, and protein and carbohydrate contents of Solanum tuberosum. Dusting of cement dust caused a significant adverse effect on all the above parameters. As the doses were increased, the values of above parameters were decreased. The epidermal characters of leaves were also observed. The number and size (length and width) of stomata, and size (length and width) of the stomatal aperture on both the surfaces of leaves were gradually decreased with the increase in cement dust levels. While, number and length of trichomes were increased at all the doses of cement dust.

Keywords

• Cement dust
• Growth
• Potato
• Stomata
• Trichome
• Yield