Effect of different sowing windows and planting geometry on determinate and indeterminate cowpea genotypes under rainfed conditions

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to study the determinate and indeterminate cowpea genotypes response under different sowing dates and planting geometry. Field trial was conducted during kharif 2013 under rainfed conditions at Main Agricultural Research Station, Dharwad. Experiment was laid out on split-split plot design with three replications. The experiment comprised of three dates of sowing (June second fortnight, July first fortnight and July second fortnight) in main plot, three row spacing’s (30, 45 and 60 cm) in sub plot and two genotypes (DC 15 and C -152) in sub-sub plot. Results indicated that Early sowing (second fortnight of June) of cowpea genotype DC 15 with 45cm row spacing is beneficial to get higher seed and haulm yield (1343 and 2830 kg ha-1 respectively). Genotype DC 15 is a determinate type having uniform days to 50% flowering and physiological maturity of pods (57.3 and 84.3 days respectively) and also had higher protein content (24.26%) and yielding ability (1026 kg ha-1) as compared to genotype C-152 (55.9 and 93.5 days, 21.33% and 887 kg ha-1 respectively).