DOI: 10.36347/sjavs.2016.v03i05.003

Pages: 351-357

The field experiments were carried out under rain fed conditions during two consecutive cropping seasons of 2012/13 and 2013/14 at the Demonstrated Farm of Dadanj University, Nuba Mountain, and South Khordofan State, Sudan. The present studies were conducted to quantify the effect of sowing date, cultivars and nitrogen application on plant growth, seed cotton yield and its components. Two Cultivars, Khalifa (medium) and Burhan (tall) were sown on three sowing dates of July 15, July 25 and August 4 with three nitrogen levels of 0, 60 and 120 kg ha-1 during the two consecutive crop seasons. The study was laid out in a split-Split- design with three replications. Observations for growth attributes; such as plant height, number of leaves/plant, 50%flowering. Yield parameters, yield of lint kg/ha-1, yield of seeds kg/ha-1, harveste index of lint kg/h-1, and harvested index of Seed kg/h-1and Oil contents. Were recorded. The results revealed that, cotton growth and yield were reduced with later sowing dates. The data were analyzed statistically by using the GENSTAT software, which showed that both the cultivars with early sowing produced higher growth and yield as compared to the late sowing date. Moreover, The Nitrogen response was consistent across sowing dates and cultivars for all data collected. Nitrogen application (120 kg N ha-1) in early planted cotton gave the highest number of plant growth and yield of (lint and seeds kg/h-1). It could be concluded that the period from the first of July to the mid of it can be considered as the optimum sowing date for yield of the cotton (Khalifa - var) at Sudan and under rain fed condition.