Effects of nitrogen rate and harvesting age on herbage and essential oil of Cymbopogon citratus

Abstract

Abstract This research is about herbage and essential oil yield (EOY) of Cymbopogon citratus subjected to multiple harvesting period and nitrogen rate. This study was carried out in Ladang 1, MARDI Kluang between June 2018 to February 2019. The experimental design used for this study was Randomized Complete Block Design with Factorial under 3 replications. The aims of this study are to evaluate effect of nitrogen rate, harvesting age and the interaction between nitrogen rate and harvesting age on C. citratus herbage yield and EOY. Some of the parameters evaluated in this study include herbage yield, EOY, height and girth. The study discovered that, girth and height show a significant positive linear response towards harvesting age while EOY shows significant negative linear response. Herbage yield was significantly affected by both nitrogen rate and harvesting age but with no significant interaction between the two. Present finding may give rise to improvement on C.citratus production SOP.