T.A. MalabasariRanganath N. Bangareppanavar2016-11-142016-11-142011http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/85411An investigation was carried out with two experiments, the field experiment were carried out at ARS, Bagalkot and storage experiment at Department of Seed Science and Technology, University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad during 2009- 2010. The field experiment was laid out in factorial RBD to study the effect of preharvest insecticidal spray on seed yield and quality of cowpea. Among the insecticidal spraying, crop sprayed with malathion @ 2 ml/l (I1) recorded significantly maximum number of pods per plant (21.09), pod weight (20.65g), seed yield per plant (3.16g) and per hectare (961kg), 100 seed weight (10.07g) and seed quality parameters with significantly least infected pods (5.54%) and infected seeds/plant (2.66), which was followed by Deltamethrin (I2) and Econeem (I4) as compared to control (I0) irrespective of the stages of insecticidal spray. Where as, spraying of insecticides at 20 and 10 DBH (S3) recorded significantly higher number of pods/plant (19.97), pod weight/plant (20.04g), seed yield/plant (2.85g) and hectare (897kg), 100 seed weight (9.85g) and also seed quality parameters with least infested pods/plant (7.36%) and infected seeds/plant (4.03) as compared to insecticide sprayed at 20 (S1) and 10 (S2) DBH. Where as the interaction effect is found to be non significant for all the parameters except yield. The storage experiment was laid out in CRD with 11 treatments to study the effect of post harvest seed treatment on storabilty of cowpea seed. Among the treatments seeds treated with castor oil @ 5 ml/kg of seed (T2) recorded maximum 100 seed weight (9.50g), germination rate index (18.71), germination (77.40%), root length (12.51cm), shoot length (10.14cm), seedling vigour index (1756) and seedling dry weight (51.73mg) whereas minimum seed infestation (8.30%), loss in seed weight (2.85%) and moisture content (8.93%) as compared to the other treatments and control (T0) at end of 10 months of storage.Seed Science and TechnologyThesis