Plant growth and productivity of rice is adversely affected by various biotic and abiotic stress factors. Water deficit is one of the major abiotic stresses, which affects crop growth and yield. Majority of rice cultivated areas in south Asia is under rainfed, where water stress at any stages of growth causes sharp decline in yield. The present study was carried out through front line demonstration under a ‘National Innovation in Climate Resilient Agriculture’ (NICRA) project during kharif seasons of 2018 and 2019 in two villages namely Pipalpada and Kinipadar of Kalahandi district of Odisha with an objective to evaluate the performance of short duration rice varieties viz. Swarna Shreya, Sahabhagidhan, DRR-42 and Naveen as compared to the farmers variety (MTU-1010). Swarna Shreya matured in 115 days and recorded higher plant height (126.83 cm), effective tillers/hill (19.33), length of panicle (28.50 cm), number of panicle/m2 (305.0), filled grains/panicle (128.72) and 1000 grain weight (25.51 g) over other varieties. This variety also produced the highest grain yield of 4.16 t ha-1 with harvest index of 0.56 and total dry matter of 538.10 /m2. The Swarn Shreya produced higher net return of Rs. 41,975/ha with a benefit-cost ratio of 1.20 and additional net return of Rs. 9735/ha as compared to farmers’ variety. The growth and yield performance of Swarna Shreya was found to be satisfactory in spite of occurrence of frequent dry spells during different crop growth stages. Thus, the existing variety, MTU-1010, may be replaced with Swarna Shreya for more productivity, income tolerant during moisture stress conditions.

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Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan (L.) is grown worldwide for its protein-rich seed. However, low availability of soil boron adversely affects the seed yield of pigeon pea. The present study was therefore conducted to assess the Influence of micronutrients mainly boron on crop growth and yield of pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan (L.)  cv. PRG176. Field experiment was conducted at farmer’s field, Pipalpada and Boria of district Kalahandi of Odisha state. Boron as boric acid at 200, 300 and 400 ppm was given as foliar spray with 100% recommended dose of fertilizer (RDF) with ZnSO4 @ 25 kg/ha and plant height, growth rates and  yield attributes were estimated. The results revealed that combined application of 100% RDF, ZnSO4 (25 kg/ha) and Boron (300 ppm) recorded the highest plant height (324.84 cm) at 180 days after sowing (DAS), highest dry matter accumulation (759.30g/m2) at 180 DAS and best crop growth rate (6.65 g/m2/day) during 90-180 DAS and highest relative growth rate (0.052 g/m2/day) during 30-90 DAS. Similarly these combination of treatment resulted in maximum number of branches plant-1 (10.30), pods branch-1 (19.67) pods plant-1 (202.33), seeds pod-1 (3.0) and grain yield (1702.64 kg ha-1), gross return (₹102150/ha), net return (₹ 61650/ha) and return per rupee investment (₹ 2.52) in pigeon pea cv.PRG176.