Harmonizing sowing dates with onset of rains to guarantee nutri-millets grain yield and quality under rain dependent farming

Abstract

Nutri-millets offer copious micronutrients like vitamins, beta-carotene etc. In this present day, all the millets are amazingly superior and are therefore, the result for the malnutrition and obesity that affects a vast majority of the Indian population. They have numerous beneficial properties like drought resistant, good yielding in areas where water is limited and they possess good nutritive values. The prospective water scarcity in semi-arid regions disturbs both normal as well as managed environments, which limits the cultivation of crops, fodder, and other plants. The issues faced by the rain-dependent farming of these semi-arid regions are primarily the unpredictability of the monsoon. Probability analysis of rainfall events are believed to contribute in deciding sowing dates for the current season and for successful crop production in semi-arid environments. The present study was carried out in semi-arid condition to quantify the performance of nutri-millets in the rain dependent farming. The experiment was laid out under factorial randomized block design with 3 replications. The treatments comprises of crop factor viz., Sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] (C1) and, little millet [Panicum sumatrense Roth ex Roem. & Schult] (C2) and sowing window factor viz., sowing based farmer’s practice (M1) i.e. on 31st standard meteorological week (SMW); Sowing at 33rd SMW based on 50% rainfall probability (M2); Sowing at 38th SMW based on 75% rainfall probability (M3), Sowing window as per the current weather forecast, for this season on 35th SMW (M4).It is evident from the study that Sowing sorghum at 38th standard meteorological week based on 75% rainfall probability recorded higher grain yield, rain water use efficiency with elevated iron and calcium content. This shows that different sowing dates have significant influence on grain yield and quality of nutri-millets.