A field experiment was conducted at the All India Co-ordinated Research Project for Dryland Agriculture, UAS, GKVK, Bengaluru during kharif 2013-14. The experiment was laid out with 20 treatment combinations with three factors using factorial RBD with two replications comprised of on a permanent manurial trial with 35th crop cycle. Application of FYM at 10 t ha-1 has recorded significantly higher grain yield (1.76 t ha-1), maximum water holding capacity (MWHC) of 43.85 % and dehydrogenase activity (DHA) of 357.60μg TPF g-1 24 h-1 obtained after harvest of the crop as compared to application of maize residues at 5 t ha-1 (1.37 t ha-1, 42.27 % and 193.0μg TPF g-1 24 h-1 respectively) due to improved growth and yield parameters of finger millet. However, finger millet-groundnut rotation has given significantly higher grain yield (1.78 t ha-1), MWHC (43.66 %) and DHA (298.48μg TPF g-1 24 h-1) after harvest of the crop over mono cropping of finger millet (1.34 t ha-1, 42.46% and 252.12μg TPFg-1 24 h-1respectively ). Among different nutrient sources, application of organic matter with 100 % RDF have given significantly higher grain yield (2.74 t ha-1), MWHC (45.86 %) and DHA (431.13μg TPF g-1 24 h-1) after harvest of the crop compared to absolute control (0.28 t ha-1, 41.76 % and 133.67μg TPFg-1 24 h-1 respectively). The 100 % recommended dose of fertilizer + organic matter significantly increased yield attributes because of improved soil physical and chemical properties and increased microbial activity of the soil with continued application of organic matter.
Seed Bio Priming for Enhancing Growth and Yield Attributes in Finger Millet Varieties (Eleusine coracana L. Garten.)
