Abstract:The field experiment was conducted at Post Graduate Institute Farm, Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth, to study on the effect of sowing date on seed quality of pigeonpea was conducted under field conditions. Further, the laboratory experiment was also conducted in the Seed Technology Research Unit, Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth, Rahuri during 2015-16 and 2016-17.
The experiment consisted of two factors viz., two dates of sowing (D1-1st fortnight of June and D2-1st fortnight of July) as first factor and four varieties (V1- Vipula, V2- Rajeshwari, V3- BDN-711 and V4- PKV-Tara) as second factor.
The sowing during 1st fortnight of June registered more number of pods per plant (367.70), pod yield per plant (102.11 g), pod yield per hectare (3191.05 kg), seed yield per plant (68.42 g) and seed yield per hectare (2138.01 kg) as spraying during against 1st fortnight of July(343.96, 95.51 g, 2984.57 kg, 63.99 g and 1999.66 kg, respectively). D1 (1st fortnight of June) shows better performance of yield per hectare (6.48%) than D2 (1st fortnight of July) sowing.
Vipula (V1) registered relatively higher values for number of pods per plant (391.19), pod yield per plant (108.63 g), pod yield per hectare (3394.61 g), seed yield per plant (72.78 g) and seed yield per hectare (2274.39 kg) against PKV-Tara (V4) (281.71, 78.18 g, 2442.97 kg, 52.38 g, 1636.79 kg, respectively). The next higher values for seed yield component were recorded in BDN-711 (V3) (383.80, 106.65 g, 3332.89 kg, 71.46 g and 2233.04 kg, respectively). The consistent results were recorded for different dates of sowing with varieties and their interaction effect.