Effect of Irrigation intervals under the influence of N-Triacontanol on growth and seed yield of Nigella (Nigella Sativa L.)

Abstract

A field investigation was carried out during 2016-17 and 2017-18 at the Horticultural Research Station, Mondouri, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Mohanpur, Nadia, West Bengal to study the effect of irrigation intervals under the influence of N-triacontanol on growth and seed yield of Nigella (Nigella sativa L.). The experiment was conducted in Strip plot design with eight treatments of irrigation intervals viz., I10 (irrigation at 10 days interval), I16 (irrigation at 16 days interval), I22 (irrigation at 22 days interval), and I28 (irrigation at 28 days interval). Each treatment had two sub treatments i.e., with (T1) and without (T0) application of N-triacontanol which were randomly replicated six times. The study revealed that irrigation at shortest interval produced maximum vegetative growth in terms of plant height, number of primary branches as well as seed yield of the crop (828.25 kg/ha). However, treatments with irrigation at longer interval enhanced earlier reproductive phase viz., first bud initiation, flower initiation, pod initiation and pod maturity. Application of N-triacontanol (T1) showed significantly superior influence on yield attributes and seed yield (674.46 kg per ha) over control (T0) (609.21 kg/ha). Among all the treatment combinations, the interaction effects between irrigation frequency and N-triacontanol regarding of growth and seed yield was found superior in I10T1. With longest frequency of irrigation (I28) the variation in yield between T1 and T0 was maximum (25.38 %) in comparison to 2.30 % at shortest interval. It clearly shows that water stress in black cumin severely effects growth and seed yield of the crop. However, N-triacontanol was found more effective particularly in the stress condition by delaying the reproductive phase to prolong normal vegetative growth for higher seed yield.