Chandra Shekhar SinghSimran Sumbrui2023-11-172023-11-172023https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810201356Wheat (Triticum aestivum) is one of the most important cereal crops in the world. It is grown across a wide range of environments around the world. In India, wheat is the second most important cereal crop next to rice contributing nearly 35 per cent to the national food basket and plays an important role in food and nutritional security. The world production of wheat in 2021 was approximately 779 million tons (2022). India produces 109 million tons (Government of India, Annual Report 2022-23) whereas Jharkhand produces 0.4 million tons with productivity of 1.8 tons/ha (Sameti, Jharkhand 2022-23). To feed India's constantly expanding population, wheat yield must be raised from its current plateau level by both genetic improvement and creative agronomic management techniques. Seaweed extract is one of the recently emerging and highly significant marine algal extracts used to promote growth and yield of field crops as it contains numerous micro, and macro nutrients as well as other growth-promoting hormones and bio-stimulants. Keeping these points in view, an experiment entitled "Efficacy of seaweed sap on productivity and profitability of wheat" was carried out at Birsa Agricultural University Farm, Kanke, Ranchi (23°17" N latitude, 85° 10" E longitude, and 625 m above mean sea level) during the Rabi season of 2021-22 with an objective to study the effect of seed treatment and foliar application of seaweed sap on growth, yield, nutrient uptake and economics of wheat production. The recommended dose of fertilizer (150:60:40 N: P2O5:K2O kg/ha). The experiment was laid out in factorial randomized block design with fourteen treatments replicated thrice. Seed treatment (2 levels) and foliar application (7 levels) with seaweed extracts were treated as factor 1 and 2, respectively. The soil was sandy-loam in texture, acidic pH (5.6), low in organic carbon (0.41%), available nitrogen (239.4 kg/ha), high in available phosphorus (26.7 kg/ha) and available potassium (189.4 kg/ha). Results illustrated that there was maximum improvement in growth attributing characters of wheat like plant height (99.19 cm), tiller numbers (347.35/m2), leaf area index (3.65), dry matter accumulation (1127.70 g/m2) and yield attributing characters i.e. earheads/m2 (333.96/m2 ), number of filled grains/earhead (46.77), earhead length (9.68 cm), earhead weight (1.36 g), 1000 grain weight (42.02 g) as well as grain yield (42.09 q/ha)and straw yield (64.52 kg/ha) was recorded with seed treatment with seaweed extract @ 3ml/kg seed. Total uptake of nitrogen (102.66 kg/ha), phosphorus (19.50 kg/ha) and potassium (96.31 kg/ha) were found maximum with seed treatment with seaweed extract. The gross return (95309 ₹ /ha), net return (64663 ₹ /ha) and B: C ratio (2.18) was also found significantly higher with seed treatment with seaweed extract than without seed treatment. The foliar application of seaweed extract at different concentration applied at different growth stages resulted in marked improvement in growth attributing characters, yield attributing characters and yield of wheat as foliar application of seaweed extracts @4ml/litre water at tillering& heading stage of wheat brought maximum improvement in plant height (104.22 cm), tiller numbers (364.47/m2), leaf area index (3.77), dry matter accumulation (1178.86 g/m2),earheads/m2 (353.19/m2), number of filled grains/earhead (48.75), earhead length (9.99 cm) , earhead weight (1.41 g), 1000 grain weight (42.35 g), grain yield (45.73 q/ha) and straw yield (67.64 q/ha) resulting in maximum uptake of total nitrogen (110.71 kg/ha), phosphorus ( 21.08 kg/ha) and potassium (100.97 kg/ha). It was also observed that thatgross return (₹ 101060 /ha), net return (₹ 69325/ha) and B:C ratio (2.18) were also recorded maximum with foliar application of seaweed extracts @4ml/litre water at tillering & heading stage of wheat. Based on one year of experimentation (Rabi 2021-22).It can be concluded that seed treatment with 3ml/kg seed and foliar application of 4 ml/litre of foliar seaweed extract at tillering and heading stage along with 100% recommended dose of fertilizer application enhanced the productivity and profitability of wheat along with higher nutrient uptake and may prove to be a viable option for enhancing productivity and profitability of wheat in upland situation of chottanagpur plateau region of Jharkhand.EnglishThesis