Effect of Designer Seeds and Fertilizer Micro-dosing on Productivity of Cowpea

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at the Instructional Farm of the College of Agriculture, Kerala Agricultural University (KAU), Vellanikkara, Thrissur from October to December 2021. The objective of the study was to assess the effect of fertilizer micro-dosing and designer seeds on the growth and yield of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp). The experiment was laid out in Completely Randomized Design (Factorial), with 3 replications. The treatments consisted of five levels of fertilizer micro-dosing (micro-dose 25%, 50%, 75% of NPK as per package of practices (POP) of KAU, NPK as per POP of KAU and absolute control) and three levels of seed treatments (designer seeds, rhizobium treated seeds, and untreated seeds). The results of the study indicated that, micro-dose and designer seeds significantly increased the biometric and yield parameters of cowpea. Among fertilizer micro-dosing, micro-dose (50 %) showed minimum days (39.78 days) to 50% flowering which was on par with micro-dose (25 %) (39.89 days). Designer seeds showed a minimum of days to 50% flowering (37.27 days) as compared to other seed treatments The combination of micro-dose (50%) along with designer seeds emerged as the most potent, yielding the highest pod weight per plant and seed yield (43.80g and 969.87kg/ha, respectively).