TNAU Agritech Portal :: Crop Protection

TNAU Agritech Portal :: Drip Fertigation in Direct Sown Red Gram

Harvesting

Harvest the whole plants when 80% of the pods mature.


Harvested pods	Threshing in Red Gram

Threshing the harvested Red Gram

After harvesting, the plants were bundled and heaped for 2 – 3 days and then allowed for sun drying. After complete sun drying, the crop was threshed by beating with wooden sticks. The seeds were winnowed and cleaned.

Yield

Drip irrigation at 100 per cent WRc with fertigation at 100 per cent RDF through WSF once in 7 days resulted in significantly higher grain yield of 2571 kg ha-1 in direct sowing with drip irrigation.

Treatments	Grain yield (kg ha-1)	% yield increase over surface irrigation
Drip fertigation with water soluble fertilizers	2571	39
Drip fertigation with conventional fertilizers	2069	12
Surface irrigation conventional fertilizers*	1851	-

*All fertilizers applied as basal

Storage

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 8-9 %.
Store the seeds in 700 gauge polythene bag for long term storage (more than15 months) with seed moisture content of less than 8%

Economics

One of the main objectives of fertigation is to reduce the cost of cultivation and to increase the economic product as high as possible. Therefore getting maximum benefits from each unit of water and nutrient applied to crop are important. A technically feasible level of fertigation with conventional and water soluble fertilizer through drip would be economically viable for its successful adoption.

Treatments	Cost of cultivation (₹ ha-1)	Net Income (₹ ha-1)	B:C ratio
Drip fertigation with water soluble fertilizers	42499	77839	2.83
Drip fertigation with conventional fertilizers	32221	64898	3.01
Surface irrigation conventional fertilizers*	26070	48981	2.90

*all fertilizers applied as basal

Conclusion

Drip fertigation once in seven days recorded maximum net returns (₹77839 ha-1) and returns per rupee invested (3.01) as compared to drip fertigation through water soluble fertilizers (2.83).

Source:
Dr. K. R. Latha,
Dr. L. Vimalendran,
Department of Agronomy
Directorate of Crop Management
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University
Coimbatore – 641 003
Phone: 6611246
Email ID: agronomy@tnau.ac.in