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 3 m all around the field from the same and other varieties of the crop.
Season
June – July and December – January
Spacing
25 x 15 cm
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Land Preparation |
| Pre-sowing seed management |
Foliar Spray
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- Obtain seeds only from healthy pods
- Discard shrivelled and disfigured seeds.
Pre-sowing seed hardening
- Harden the graded seeds by soaking in 0.5% CaCl2 (50% seed volume) for 6 h.
- After 6 h soaking, incubate the seeds in between moist gunny bags for 12 – 18 h.
- Observe the sprouting of radicle periodically at 2 h interval after 12 h of incubation.
- Separate the seeds with sprouted radicle (just visible expression of radicle) and dry under shade.
- Soak the seeds in 3 % spent wash, half of the volume of the solution for 2 h in areas of availability.
Fertilizer requirement
- Apply NPK @ 40:40:60 kg ha-1 as basal application
- In boran deficient soils, apply borax @ 10 kg ha-1 as basal dressing.
- At peg formation stage, apply gypsum @ 200 kg ha-1 and earth up the plants
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| Harvest |
Harvesting
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- Harvest the pods as and when the colour of the inner side of the shell turn black and dry to 10 – 12 per cent moisture.
- Reject mechanically injured pods for seed purpose
- Remove all discolored pods.
- Practice pod verification based on varietal characteristic before grading to remove genetically impure seed
Drying
- Stake the plants as the pods are exposed outside for easy drying of pods.
- Dry the pods to 15 – 20 % moisture content under sun.
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Decortication |
Decortication |
- Dry the pods to 16 per cent moisture content and decorticate manually
- Using hand operated decorticator with proper adjustment.
- Dry the kernels to 7 to 8 per cent moisture
Seed treatment
- Treat the pods with carbendazim @ 2 g kg-1 at 6 -7 % moisture content.
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Seed Storage
- Store the pods in closed plastic container or gunny bags with Calcium chloride @ 250g/30 kg of pods.
- Store the seeds in gunny or cloth bags for short term storage (8-9 months) with seed moisture content of 8 - 9%.
- Store the seeds in polylined gunny bag for medium term storage (12- 15 months) with seed moisture content of 6-8 %.
- Store the seeds in 700 gauge polythene bag for long term storage (more than15 months) with seed moisture content less than 5%
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 Matured seed |
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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