Abstract

Drought stress is a serious challenge for sweet corn in semi-arid and arid regions across the world. Potassium fertilization has been shown to be effective in mitigating the adverse effects of drought stress. However, the impact of potassium on nutritional quality of sweet corn has not been tested yet.  Therefore this study investigated the role of potassium in alleviating the negative impacts of water scarcity and improving the nutritional quality of sweet corn. A pot experiment was conducted on two genotypes of sweet corn (SUGAR-75 and NSC901B) with three potassium levels (0, 500 ppm, and 700 ppm) recorded as control, K₁, and K₂, respectively under six different drought conditions to investigate the efficacy of potassium in improving the seed quality of sweet corn under drought stress. Drought stress considerably affected the yield quality of sweet corn in both genotypes, and when drought stress was sustained, these negative consequences were exacerbated. Furthermore, potassium supplementation reduced negative effects of drought and increases seed quality in sweet corn. Results of this experiment revealed that potassium fertilization can enhance the nutritional quality of sweet corn under normal as well as drought stress conditions.