Finger millet, an orphan crop, possesses immense potential in mitigating climate change and could offer threefold security in terms of food, fodder, and nutrition. It is mostly cultivated as a subsistence crop in the marginal areas of plains and hills. Considering the changes in climate inclusive of recurrent weather vagaries witnessed every year, it is crucial to select stable, high-yielding, area-specific, finger millet cultivars. Sixty finger millet varieties released across the country were evaluated over six consecutive rainy seasons from 2011 to 2016 at the Agricultural Research Station, Vizianagaram. The genotype × environment interaction (GEI) was found to be significant in the combined ANOVA. Furthermore, the Additive Main effects and Multiplicative Interaction (AMMI) analysis asserted that genotypes and the GEI effects accounted for approximately 89% of the total variation. Strong positive associations were observed in an estimated set of eleven stability parameters which were chosen to identify stable genotypes. Furthermore, Non-parametric and Parametric Simultaneous Selection indices (NP-SSI and P-SSI) were calculated utilizing AMMI-based stability parameter (ASTAB), modified AMMI stability value (MASV), and Modified AMMI Stability Index (MASI) to identify stable high yielders. Both methods had inherent difficulties in ranking genotypes for SSI. To overcome this, the initial culling [i.e., SSI with culling strategy (C-SSI)] of genotypes was introduced for stability. In the C-SSI method, the top ten genotypes were above-average yielders, while those with below-average yield were observed in NP-SSI and P-SSI methods. Similarly, the estimation of best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP)-based simultaneous selections, such as harmonic mean of genotypic values (HMGV), relative performance of genotypic values (RPGV), and harmonic mean of relative performance of genotypic values (HMRPGV), revealed that none of the top ten entries had below-average yield. The study has proven that C-SSI and BLUP-based methods were equally worthy in the selection of high-yielding genotypes with stable performance. However, the C-SSI approach could be the best method to ensure that genotypes with a considerable amount of stability are selected. The multi-year trial SSI revealed that entries Indaf-9, Sri Chaitanya, PR-202, and A-404; and VL324 and VL146 were ascertained to be the most stable high-yielding genotypes among medium-to-late and early maturity groups, respectively.

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A field experiment was conducted at Agricultural Research Station, Vizianagaram, Andhra Pradesh during rainy seasons of 2015 and 2016 to find out the best chemical weed management practices in maize (Zea mays L.). Twelve treatments were tested in randomized block design with three replications. Treatments consisted of pre-emergence (PE) and post-emergence (PoE) herbicides applications along with weed free check and weedy check. Experimental results indicated that PoE of tank mix formulation of tembotrione 50 g/ha + atrazine 0.5 kg/ha at 15-20 days after seeding (DAS) has recorded highest weed control efficiency (93.6 and 96.9%, respectively during 2015 and 2016) followed by hand weeding twice at 20 and 40 DAS (90.1 and 95.6%, respectively). Grain yield was significantly higher (9.79 t/ha and 8.70 t/ha, respectively) with hand weeding twice at 20 and 40 DAS, and it was closely followed by PoE of tembotrione 50 g/ha + atrazine 0.5 kg/ha (9.65 t/ha and 8.61 t/ha respectively). Net monetary returns (1 04357 and ` 97985, respectively) and B:C ratio (2.94 and 3.14, respectively) were also significantly high with PoE application of tembotrione 50 g/ha + atrazine 0.5 kg/ha.

A field experiment was carried out at Agricultural Research Station, Vizianagaram, during Kharif, 2016 under rainfed conditions to know the fertilizer responsiveness of promising finger millet varieties to graded doses of NPK fertilizers. Twenty treatment combinations were tested in split- plot design with three replications. Experimental results revealed that with 125% RDF grain yield increase was 10%, 27% and 48% higher than 100% RDF, 75% RDF and 50% RDF respectively. Among the finger millet genotypes, grain yield of VL-379(2037 kg/ha) and VL-352(1989 kg/ha) was significantly high and was at par with national check variety VR-708(1959 kg/ha). Both the test varieties (VL-379 and VL-352) were far superior to local check variety in terms of growth and yield characteristics. Higher net monetary returns and B:C ratio were obtained with VL-379, followed by VR-708 and VL-352 at 125% RDF.

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