Vol. 9, Issue 12 (2020)

Author(s):
SA Bhusari, SR Gaikwad, MM Kutawal and SV Kasle

Abstract:
A field experiment was conducted during kharif 2017 at Experiment Farm, Department of Agronomy, College of Agriculture, Latur, to study the effect of fertilizer grades and plant density on Niger. The soil was clayey in texture, low in available nitrogen (135.31 kg ha-1), medium in phosphorus (19.42 kg ha-1), high in potassium (444 kg ha-1) and slightly alkaline in reaction (8.1 pH). The experiment was laid out in a Factorial Randomized Block Design consisting three fertilizer grades viz. 30:15:00 NPK kg ha-1 (F1), 40:20:00 NPK kg ha-1 (F2) and 50:25:00 NPK kg ha-1 (F3) and four spacing of 30 cm x 10 cm (S1), 30 cm x 15 cm (S2) and 45 cm x 10 cm (S3) and 45 cm x 15 cm (S4) replicated thrice. The results indicated that growth and yield attributing characters of Niger viz. number of functional leaves, leaf area, number of flower heads plant-1, number of branches, total dry matter, seed yield per plant and test weight were appreciably improved with the spacing of 45 x 15 cm. The spacing of 30 x 15 cm was found to be significantly effective in producing higher seed yield (kg ha-1), oil yield (kg ha-1), gross monetary returns, net monetary returns and B: C ratio which was at a par with the spacing of 30 x 10 cm and significantly superior over rest of the spacing. Higher growth and yield attributes under wider spacing (45 x 15 cm) might be due to more availability of space, nutrients and moisture while higher seed and oil yield as well as monetary return obtained by closer spacing of 30 x 15 cm due to the optimum space and plant population per unit area. Among different fertilizer levels, the application of 50:25:00 NPK kg ha-1 produced significantly higher growth and yield attributing characters, higher seed yield and oil yield (kg ha-1), gross and net monetary returns with higher B: C ratio as compared to 30:15:00 NPK kg ha-1 and it was at par with 40:20:00 NPK kg ha-1. The higher growth and yield obtained by the higher level of 50:25:00 NPK kg ha-1 might be due to the availability of sufficient amount and nutrients made available to the Niger crop to exploit the yield potential. But it was statistically comparable with the fertilizer grade of 40:20:00 NPK kg ha-1.