Studies on organic source of nutrients on yield attributes and productivity of finger millet in finger millet-groundnut cropping sequence

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at research and demonstration block of Research Institute on Organic Farming, UAS, GKVK, Bengaluru during kharif 2021 and 2022 to study the effect of organic sources on yield attributes and productivity of finger millet in finger millet-groundnut cropping sequence. The experiment was laid out in randomized block design with factorial concept and replicated thrice. The experiment consists of 12 treatment combinations of two levels of N equivalent and six organic sources along with absolute control and UAS-B package. The experimental soil was red sandy loam having medium organic carbon (0.63%), N (294.3 kg ha-1), P2O5 (27.9 kg ha-1) and K2O (236.5 kg ha-1). The experimental results indicated that application of bio-compost at 150% N equivalent resulted in significantly higher number of productive tillers per hill (7.29), number of fingers per earhead (8.44), finger length (11.48 cm) cearhead length (12.03 cm), grain yield (3459 kg ha-1) and straw yield of finger millet (5842 kg ha-1) followed by application of poultry manure at 150% N equivalent and found significantly superior over other treatments in the studies. However, UAS (B) package i.e., 50:40:37.5 kg N: P2O5: K2O ha-1 recorded significantly higher number of productive tillers per hill (7.35), number of fingers per earhead (8.56), finger length (11.77 cm) earhead length (12.13 cm), grain yield (3493 kg ha-1) and straw yield of finger millet (5942 kg ha-1) and was on par with application of bio-compost at 150% N equivalent.