The Effects of Different Sources and Rates of Nitrogen on Nitrogen Use Efficiency and Cucumber Yield

To evaluate the effects of nitrogen sources and rates on yield and yield components of cucumber a factorial pot experiment with completely randomized design and twenty treatments and three replications were conducted at the green house of agricultural education center in Tabriz, Iran, in 2009. Treatments of the study consisted of factorial combinations of four nitrogen sources (urea, sulfur coated urea, ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulfate) and five rates of nitrogen (0, 150, 300, 450 and 600 kg nitrogen per hectare). Traits measured in the study were fruit yield, number of fruit per plant, fruit length and diameter. Results of the variance analysis of data showed that the main and interactive effects of nitrogen source and rate were significant on fruit yield and length at 1% probability. The highest fruit yield (640.2 g/plant) was obtained from the application of 600 kg nitrogen per hectare as sulfur coated urea. The highest fruit length and number of fruit per plant were also obtained from this treatment. Comparison of the means values showed that the lowest fruit yield was in the treatment with ammonium nitrate.