Physiological studies for yield enhancement in finger millet under drought condition

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to study the effect of nutrients and plant growth regulators in finger millet under drought condition in pot culture. The treatments comprised of Absolute control, Seed treatment with Brassinosteroid (0.1 ppm), Foliar spray of All 19:19:19 (1%), Urea (0.5%) + KCl (1%), Brassinosteroid (0.3 ppm), Salicylic acid (100 ppm), Chlormequat chloride (200 ppm) along with Control in ragi CO15 were followed after imposing stress during vegetative stage. The experiment was laid out in factorial completely randomized design with three replications. The physiological and biochemical traits viz., gas exchange parameters, relative water content, chlorophyll index, chlorophyll fluorescence, proline content, catalase activity and yield traits were recorded. Foliar spray of 0.3 ppm Brassinosteroid showed significant effect on gas exchange parameters, chlorophyll fluorescence, proline content and yield traits. Chlorophyll index and relative water content was found to be higher in 100 ppm salicylic acid as foliar spray. Hence, foliar spray of Brassinosteroid (0.3 ppm) and Salicylic acid (100 ppm) were found to be effective for improving the physiological and biochemical aspects which exhibited better yield and yield attributes under drought condition in finger millet.