Impact of Organic and Inorganic Nutrient Sources on Yield Attributes and Yield of Maize-Mustard Cropping System

Abstract

Soil quality deterioration, especially in intensive cropping system has become a serious problem for crop productivity. Consequently, strategies for sustainable crop production and soil health are urgently required. Therefore, a field experiment was conducted to study the impact of organic and inorganic nutrient sources on yield attributes and yield of maize-mustard cropping system during two consecutive kharif and rabi seasons of 2019-20 and 2020-21, respectively. The experiment was laid out in randomized block design assigning eight treatments of organic and inorganic nutrient sources comprising of (T1) RDF (120:60:40 kg N:P2O5:K2O ha-1), (T2) RDF + Zn, (T3) RDF + S, (T4) RDF + Zn + S, (T5) RDF + VC (5 t ha-1), (T6) RDF + VC (10 t ha-1), (T7) RDF + FYM (5 t ha-1) and (T8) RDF + FYM (10 t ha-1) and were replicated thrice. The results reported that the higher yield attributes and yield of maize viz., number of cobs plant-1, number of seeds cob-1, cob length, seed yield, stover yield and biological yield and for mustard viz., siliquae plant-1, number of seeds siliquae-1, length of siliquae, seed yield, stover yield and biological yield were recorded with application of RDF + VC (10 t ha-1) which was statistically at par with RDF + FYM (10 t ha-1). However, seed index/test weight and harvest index of maize-mustard cropping was failed to show any significant effect due to above treatments.