No abstract

An experiment was carried out on loamy sand soil of Bidi tobacco Research Station Farm, AAU, Anand to evaluate the effect of organic manures (farmyard manure, vermi-compost, poultry manure, neem cake and castor cake) on growth and green pod yield of cowpea during summer season of 2013-14 in randomized block design with four replication. Application of recommended dose of fertilizer 20-40-0 NPK kg ha -1 recorded significantly higher green pod, stover yield and yield contributing characters viz., number of green pods plant -1 , number of seeds pod -1 over different organic sources; However, application of 2 t ha -1 vermicompost was at par with RDF. The plant population per meter row length at 25 DAS and at final picking and number of branches plant -1 and plant height at 30 DAS showed no significant difference between different treatments, but at 60 DAS and at final picking significantly higher plant height was observed due to use of RDF 20-40-0 NPK kg ha -1 .

An experiment was carried out on loamy sand soil to evaluate the effect of organic manures (farmyard manure, vermicompost, poultry manure, neem cake and castor cake) on soil and quality parameters of cowpea during summer season of 2014. Nine treatments were tried out in randomized block design with four replications. Recommended Dose Fertilizer (RDF) i.e. 20-40-0 NPK kg ha-1 recorded significantly higher chlorophyll content of leaves at 60 DAS and crude protein content in green seed over rest of the treatments except, vermicompost 2 t ha -1 and poultry manure 2 t ha -1 . Soil chemical parameters viz., Organic Carbon (OC), EC, available N, P 2 O 5 and K 2 O were found to be affected significantly due to different treatments. Higher OC content after harvest of the crop was reported under treatment Poultry manure 2 t ha -1 . Whereas, treatment vermicompost @ 2 t ha -1 recorded significantly reduction in EC over control, however, different treatments failed to exert their significant influence on soil pH after harvest of the crop. Significantly higher values of available nutrients (N, P 2 O 5 and K 2 O) in the soil after harvest of the crop was observed under the treatment VC 2 t ha -1 , FYM 2.5 t ha -1 and PM 2 t ha -1 , respectively. RDF 20-40-0 kg NPK ha -1 recorded the maximum value of net realization with BCR value followed by treatment PM 2 t ha -1 .

Twenty treatment combinations comprising of four levels of fertilizer management and five levels of herbicide management were tested in a factorial RBD with four replications. It was concluded that for controlling broomrape effectively and securing maximum cured leaf yield of Bidi tobacco as well as economic returns with management through different fertilizers, an application of ammonium sulphate at 200 kg/ha along with irrigation should be carried out. With regard to management of broomrape, manual weeding of broomrape was found to be the best practice.

A field experiment was conducted at Agronomy Farm, B. A. College of Agriculture, Anand Agricultural University, Anand, to study the influence of irrigation scheduling (IW:CPE ratios) and sulphur on yield and quality of <italic>rabi</italic> pigeonpea (<italic>Cajanus cajan</italic> L<italic>.</italic>) under middle Gujarat conditions during <italic>rabi</italic>, 2009-10 on loamy sand soil. Irrigation scheduling at 0.8 IW/CPE ratios (I₃) resulted in significantly the highest grain yield (1677 kg ha⁻¹), protein content (20.85 %) and significantly higher stover yield (4858 kg ha⁻¹) and gave highest net monetary returns of Rs.37591 ha⁻¹ with maximum B:C ratio of 2.34. Application of sulphur @ 40 kg S ha⁻¹ (S₂) recorded significantly the highest grain (1630 kg ha⁻¹) and stover (4819 kg ha⁻¹) yields. In case of protein content and economics, application of sulphur @ 40 kg S ha⁻¹ recorded significantly the highest protein content (21.03 %) and the highest net monetary returns of Rs.35000 ha⁻¹ with maximum B:C ratio of 2.19. Interaction effect between irrigation scheduling and sulphur levels on grain yield was highly significant. Irrigation scheduled at 0.8 IW/CPE ratio with the application of 40 kg S ha⁻¹ recorded significantly higher grain yield (1929 kg ha⁻¹) , however, it was at par with the irrigation scheduled at 0.8 IW/CPE ratio with 20 kg S ha⁻¹.