AGRONOMIC PERFORMANCE OF PIGEONPEA AS INFLUENCED BY CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE PRACTICES AND NUTRIENT LEVELS UNDER SEMI-ARID TROPICS

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Date
2017-08-30
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UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES, RAICHUR
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Field experiments were conducted during 2015 and 2016 to study the suitable conservation agricultural practices on productivity and profitability of pigeonpea at the University of Agricultural Sciences, Raichur. Treatment consisted of five main treatments of zero tillage raised bed and flat bed, with or without crop residue retention and conventional tillage and sub-plots with reduced nutrient doses of recommended inorganic fertilizers. The experiment was laid out in strip plot design. The pooled results indicated that application of 100 per cent recommended dose of inorganic nutrients in zero till-raised bed with residues retention recorded significantly highest pigeonpea seed yield, stalk yield and gross returns compared to other conservation agriculture practices in medium deep black soils (1,447 kg ha-1, 5,297 kg ha-1 and 79,585 ha-1, respectively) and sandy loam soils (1,334 kg ha-1, 4,726 kg ha-1 and 73,104 ha-1, respectively). Net returns were on par with each other in all the nutrient doses in zero till-raised bed with residues retention practices compared to other interactions. Soil microbial activities viz., nodule number (21.33 and 19.33), nodule dry weight (128.92 and 92.05 mg plant-1), AMF root colonization (25.56 and 16.11 %), dehydrogenase (18.53 and 15.53 μg TPF g-1 day-1), phosphatase (32.55 and 24.22 μg p-NP g-1 h-1), urease (3.60 and 2.79 μg NH4-N g-1 h-1) and Fluorescent pseudomonas (17.50 and 3.17 104 cfu g-1) were higher with no fertilizer applied in zero till-raised bed with residues retention compared to conventional tillage practices in medium deep black and sandy loam soils, respectively. Energy analysis revealed that significantly highest net energy (16,512 MJ ha-1), energy productivity (0.47 kg MJ-1) and energy use efficiency (6.88) were observed in treatment where no fertilizer was applied in zero tillage raised bed with residues retention. There was saving of 50 per cent inorganic fertilizer in long term conservation agriculture practice of zero till-raised bed with residues retention on surface.
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