Vol. 11, Special Issue 1 (2022)

Author(s):
Amit Kumar, PC Chaplot, HS Purohit and Urmila

Abstract:
A field experiment was conducted on clay loam soil at Instructional Farm, Rajasthan College of Agriculture, Udaipur during two consecutive kharif season of 2014 & 2015 and rabi seasons of 2014-15 & 2015-16. The objectives were to assess effect of fertility levels, biofertilizer and organic manure on yield of fodder sorghum and to evaluate the residual effect of these on succeeding barley crop. The results showed that single cut sorghum fertilized with 100% RDF (80 kg N+40 kg P2O5 + 40 kg K2O) gave higher crop productivity in terms of green (36.02 t ha^-1) and dry (11.34 t ha^-1) fodder yield representing increases of 6.0, 12.4 and 7.3, 15.7 per cent over application of 75 and 50% RDF, respectively. Dual inoculation of sorghum seed with Azotobacter + PSB significantly improved green and dry fodder yield by 6.3, 8.3 and 8.8, 9.4 per cent over single inoculation of PSB and Azotobacter, respectively. Consequently manuring with vermicompost produced highest green and dry fodder yield by 35.6 and 11.1 t ha-1 over no manure, respectively. The results of residual effect of fertility level revealed that application of 100% RDF to fodder sorghum crop had residual effect on barley resulted highest green and dry fodder yield representing increase of 13.5 and 2.4 q ha^-1 over 50% RDF, respectively. The barley crop under residual effect of vermicompost significantly improved growth and productivity in terms of green & dry fodder yield as compared to no manure. The magnitude of increase was 9.2 & 5.2 per cent, respectively.