Bangladesh J. Environ. Sci., Vol. 23, 159-162, 2012 @ BAED ISSN 1561-9206 EFFECTS OF ETHYLENE DIUREA (EDU) ON GROWTH AND YIELD PERFORMANCES OF MUNGBEAN M. R. Islam, M.A. Sattar, M.T. Islam, N. Islam and M.M. Alam 1 Department of Environmental Science, 1 Department of Agronomy Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh ABSTRACT A study was conducted during January 2010 to May 2011 to examine the effect of EDU (antiozonant) on growth and yield performances of mungbean in the farming area of the Department of Environmental Science, Bangladesh Agricultural University Campus, Mymensingh. Total 40 crops were used to show the effect of ethylenediurea (EDU) on growth and yield of mungbean, where fifty percent of the plants was treated with EDU solution freshly prepared in deionized water. An EDU-concentration of 400 ppm concentration was applied for the study. The EDU application was repeated every 10 days up to the maturity of reproductive parts with an increasing amount of solution after every next treatment. Control plants (approx. 20) were treated with the similar amount of deionized water. Mungbean plant cultivated with EDU produced significantly more plant height, total branch/plant, total pod/plant, pod length, amount of seed/pod, total fresh weight, total dry weight and seed weight/plant. The mungbean seeds were also analyzed, where it was reported that the effect of EDU on P and K concentrations in mungbean seed were statistically not significant, although NPK concentrations in EDU treated mungbean plants were higher than that of NPK concentrations in mungbean plant cultivated without EDU. Key words: Ethylene diurea, growth, yield, mungbean. Introduction Mungbean is an erect bushy annual bean (Vigna radiate L Wilczek) that is widely cultivated in warm regions for edible usually green or yellow seeds, and as the chief source of protein. It is considered the best among all pulses as it has good taste and flavour (Khan, et al., 2004). The agro-ecological condition of Bangladesh is favorable for growing mungbean. Most of the pulse crops are grown in the Rabi season (October to March). But, the increasing area and irrigation facilities for boro rice cultivation have further reduced the cultivation area under mungbean. Therefore farmers have lost interest in producing mungbean because of low output per unit of resource invested. Hence, attention should be give to increase per unit yield of pulses. This mungbean is suffering with green house gases such as Tropospheric ozone. Various surveys from different parts of the world have shown that increased ozone concentrations result in foliar injury and biomass reduction of sensitive crop species, such as mungbean, rice, beans, spinach and potatoes. The increased ozone concentrations in troposphere result in foliar injury and biomass reduction of sensitive crop species, such as mungbean, rice, beans and potatoes (Fuhrer et al., 1997) in the different countries of South Asia. It has been widely used to suppress acute and chronic ozone injury on a variety of plants under ambient conditions (Tonneijk and Van Dijk, 1997). Ethylene Diurea (EDU) is a protective chemical and it can be widely used as a chemical fertilizer. EDU has positive effect on plant growth and productivity. The application of EDU as a protectant can give higher yield and nutrition quality was first reported by Carnahan et al. (1978). The use of EDU also useful to evaluate the extent of green house gases injury in the field under natural conditions (Clark et al., 1984; Guderian et al., 1985). Hence it is the need for time to conduct a study in localized elevated O 3 “hot spot” areas where food security are the continued of the South Asian region as a whole could be severely compromised. In this aspects a Ph.D. research based on “Impacts of tropospheric ozone on crop losses in Bangladesh Agricultural University Campus, Mymensingh was carried out during 2006-2009, but no study was performed in Bangladesh to asses the ambient ozone impact on pulse crops. So the present research work was conducted with following objectives: i) to investigate the effect of EDU on growth and yield quality of mungbean and ii) To determine the ambient ozone concentrations in the farming area of Bangladesh Agricultural University. Materials and Methods The experiment was conducted during January 2010 to May 2011 in the Middle portion of the Environmental Science Dept. farm, Bangladesh Agricultural University which was far from any pollution 159