Advanced Journal of Seed Science and Technology ISSN 2812-3425 Vol. 5  (3), pp. 150-157, March, 2018. © Advanced Scholars Journals

Full length Research paper

Effects of mother crop nutrition in relation to organic and inorganic inputs on seed yield

*Dhyan E. Rushdie, Aamir Vajpayee and Azim Narayan

Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding/Seed Science and Technology, SHIATS (formerly AAI-DU) Allahabad-21007, UP, India.

E-mail: [email protected] 

Accepted 17 February, 2018

Abstract

A study was conducted at the Department of Seed Science and Technology, Tamilnadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore in June - July season of two different years to find out suitable organics for enhanced productivity of rice cv ADT 43 for organic seed production. The treatment comprises of soil application of neem cake, biogas slurry, vermicompost, green leaf manure + azolla and farmyard manure based on recommended N requirement and was compared with inorganic fertilization with recommended doses of NPK. At vegetative, flowering and seed maturation stages, parts of the treatments were sprayed with panchagavya 3%, where the unsprayed plots served as check except for plots applied with inorganic nutrients. The results revealed among the organic soil application of neem cake (1786 kg ha^-1) along with 3% panchakavya foliar spray maximized the yield along with yield attributing characters (plant height, total number of tillers hill^-1, productive tillers hill^-1, chlorophyll content, panicle length). However, the yield was higher with basal nutrients applied as inorganic (3537 kg ha ^-1 in initial and 4352 kg ha^-1 in confirmation), which was on par with neem cake + panchakavya (3500 kg ha^-1 in initial and 4315 kg ha ^-1 in confirmation),GLM + azolla (3380 kg ha^-1 in initial) and GLM + azolla + panchakavya (4213 kg ha^-1 in confirmation) treatments and sprayed with panchakavya at vegetative, flowering and maturity, but both were on par with organic nutrients scored as the best in both years (initial and confirmation) of experimentation and was followed by nutrients applied in the form of neem cake and sprayed with 3% panchakavya spray and was on par. Evaluation of resultant organic seed quality characters including field emergence of organically produced seed as above also recorded higher filled seeds, seed recovery, seed hardness, 100 seed weight, seed germination, vigour, biochemical attributes, such as total sugars and protein content and the activity of ATPase, alpha – amylase and dehydrogenase enzymes ,which were even higher than seeds of inorganic nutrients.

Key words: Rice, organic seed production, organic techniques, organic manures, quality seeds.