Land requirement
- Land should be free of volunteer plants. The previous crop should not be the same variety or other varieties of the same crop. It can be the same variety if it is certified as per the procedures of certification agency
Isolation
- For certified/ quality seed production leave a distance of 200 m all around the field from the same and other varieties of cumbu
Season
- October – December and June-September.
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Land Prepration |
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Flowering |
Selfing |
Maturity Stage |
Spacing
Pre-sowing seed treatment
- Soak the seeds in 2% KCl for 16h in a seed to solution ratio of 1:1 and dry back the seeds to original seed moisture content (8 – 9%) under shade. This can be adopted both for the garden and dry land ecosystem.
Fertilizer requirement
- The crop requires NPK @100 : 50 : 50 kg ha-1. Apply NPK @ 50 :50:50 kg ha-1 as basal and 50 kg N on 30 days after sowing as top dressing
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Spacing |
Threshing
- Thresh the earheads either manually or mechanically at moisture content of 15 - 20 %.
Harvesting
- Seeds attain physiological maturity 27-30 days after 50% flowering.
- Harvest the earheads when the seed attained the characteristic pale green colour, as once over harvest at 20-25 % moisture content.
- Harvest the crop as two pickings when the tiller number is more.
- Earheads from late-formed tillers (after 7 earheads from first formed tillers) should not be selected for seed purpose
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Harvesting |
Foliar spray
- At peak tillering stage, spray DAP @ 1 % to enhance pollen viability and enhanced seed set
Drying
- Dry the seed either under sun or using mechanical hot air driers to reduce the moisture content to 10%.
Seed grading
- Dry the seed either under sun or using mechanical hot air driers to reduce the moisture content to 10%.
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Storage
- Store the seeds in gunny or cloth bags for short term storage (8-9 months)with the seed moisture content of 10-12 %
- Store the seeds in polylined gunny bag for medium term storage (12- 15 months) with the seed moisture content of 8 – 9 %
- Store the seeds in 700 gauge polythene bag for long term storage (more than15 months) with the seed moisture content of less than 8%.
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Source
The Professor and Head,
Department of Seed Science & Technology,
TNAU, Coimbatore-641003.
Phone:0422-6611363
Email: seed@tnau.ac.in
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