STUDIES ON THE POTENTIAL OF INTEGRATED NUTRIENT
MANAGEMENT FOR IMPROVING THE VEGETATIVE AND
REPRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE OF BERSEEM CROP
BASANTI CHINTAPALLI*, SUBHASH C. BIYAN, POOJA DHUPPAR AND D. SARVESHWARA RAO
Department of Botany
Dayalbagh Educational Institute (Deemed University),
Agra-282 110 (U. P.), India
*(e-mail : basanthich@gmail.com.)
SUMMARY
The effects of FYM, chemical fertilizers and biofertilizers on the vegetative and reproductive performance of berseem fodder crop were studied by cultivating the crop during rabi season of 2011-12 at experimental plots of the D. E. I., Department of Botany at Agra. Seven treatments and five replications were chosen in the RCBD. The treatment consisting of farm yard manure+Rhizobium+phosphate solubilizing bacteria+Azospirillium resulted in maximum plant height (13.1 cm at 35 DAS), fresh forage yield (16780 kg/ha), maximum length of head (2.7 cm), maximum number of flowers per head (83 flowers/head) and maximum seed yield (387.2 kg/ha). On the contrary, the values for the above traits in the control plots were as follows : 10.6 cm, 15980 kg/ha, 1.8 cm, 60.6 flowers and 260 kg/ha for plant height, fresh forage yield, length of head, number of flowers per head and seed yield, respectively. So, it was concluded that berseem showed better performance when treated with FYM+biofertilizers.
Key words : Berseem, biofertilizers, vegetative and reproductive performance