Influence of Natural Liquid Organics on Morphology and Growth Attributes of Blackgram (Vigna mungo L.)

Abstract

Background: Heavy use of chemicals in agriculture has weakened the ecological base and caused the degradation of soil, water resources and quality of the food. The increasing cost and unavailability of fertilizers, growing ecological concern has forced us to try new methods of application of nutrients. Natural farming is the new method introduced as a holistic alternative to the present chemical input based agriculture. There has been increasing interest in the use of panchagavya, beejamrutha, jeevamrutha and other liquid organic formulations during the recent years. Therefore, there is a need to compare the efficiency of natural liquid organics and the regular chemical fertilizers. Hence, the present investigation is taken up with the aim to study the effect of different foliar spray of organics on growth of blackgram. Methods: A field experiment was conducted at the dryland farm, S.V. Agricultural College, Tirupati during Kharif, 2017 to study the effect of foliar sprays of different natural liquid organics on morphological and growth attributes of blackgram. Result: The results indicated that RDF (recommended dose of fertilizers) recorded significantly maximum plant height, leaf area, dry matter, seed yield and other yield attributes over the foliar spray of liquid organics. Results further revealed that significantly lower plant height, dry matter were recorded in the treatment receiving seed treatment with beejamrutha. No significant difference in terms of days to 50% flowering was observed among the treatments. Significantly higher emergence index was recorded in the treatments receiving seed treatment with beejamrutha and water. Integrated use of organics has recorded significantly more number of root nodules compared to other treatments. Jeevamrutha foliar spray recorded to be superior over panchagavya foliar spray which was attributed to the presence of micronutrients in jeevamrutha.