LALITA SAINI*, SAHIL SINDHI, B. K. DAVDA, B. GANGAIAH, SATPAL AND N. KHAROR
All India Coordinated Research Project on Sorghum, Navasari Agricultural University,
Surat (Gujarat), India
ICAR-Indian Institute of Millets Research,
Hyderabad-500 030 (Telangana), India
All India Coordinated Research Project on Sorghum,
CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar-125 004 (Haryana), India
*(e-mail : lalitasaini9990@gmail.com)
(Received : 27 November 2020; Accepted : 15 December 2020)
SUMMARY
A two-year (2018 and 2019) field study was conducted at All India Coordinated Research Project on Sorghum (AICRP on Sorghum) centre, Surat, Gujarat to assess the effect of three levels of each of phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) i.e. 15, 30 and 45 kg/ha of P2O5 / K2O in comparison to N alone fertilized control treatment on multicut forage sorghum (SSG 59-3). These treatments replicated thrice were evaluated in Randomized Block Design (RBD) in a deep clay soil that was medium for available K (207.2 kg/ha) and available P (21.3 kg/ha). Multicut forage sorghum crop performance measured in terms of dry fodder yield showed that application of P45K30 resulted in 83.8% improvement in dry fodder yields over no PK applied control (N alone) treatment and thus was promising to all other treatments. Crude protein and IVDMD values improved significantly with PK fertilization over control and highest crude protein (8.12 & 8.69%) and IVDMD (52.90 and 53.30%) values were recorded with P45K30 in both first and second cuts. However, based on net income and benefit cost ratio ( ` 87,781 and 3.91), application of P45K15 was promising. From the study it is concluded that in deep clay soils of Gujarat state, application of 45 kg P2O5 and 15 kg K2O fertilizers along with 120 kg N is desired for realizing higher fodder yields and net incomes from multicut forage sorghum.
Key words:Fodder, Multi cut sorghum, Phosphorus, Potassium