Response of various methods of jeevamrut application on growth, soil properties and quality of clusterbean (cyamopsis tetragonoloba l. taub.) cultivars

Introduction

Clusterbean (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba L. Taub.), popularly known by its vernacular name guar is an important leguminous crop of rainfed condition. Clusterbean seed contains 28-33% gum. Clusterbean has natural polysaccharide water-soluble polymer which found in the endosperm, as galactomannan gum, is the chief product used in many industries (Amin et al., 2007) [2] . Clusterbean adds in the fertility of soil by fixing considerable amount of atmospheric nitrogen. It can fix around 37-196 kg atmospheric nitrogen ha -1 year -1 in soil. In present era quality and safety are the two important factors that have gained ever-increasing attention in general consumers. Conventionally grown foods have immense adverse health effect due to presence of higher pesticides residues, high nitrate content, heavy metals, antibiotic residues and genetically modified organisms. The overuse of chemical inputs in agriculture has led to soil and environment pollution. Thus, Jeevamrut in organic farming is a cheaper eco-friendly organic preparation made by cow products namely dung, urine, flour of gram and jaggery. Jeevamrut is liquid organic manure which is an excellent source of organic carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium and lot of other micro nutrients required by crops. Jeevamrut promotes immense biological activity in soil and makes nutrient available to the crop. It is described as one of the four wheels of Zero Budget Natural Farming (Palekar, 2005) [9] . There was three times increase in available phosphate and two times increase in potash content of soil and the improvement in soil pH and E.C were reported to be close to neutral after organic cultivation (Ali et al., 2011) [1] . The treatments comprising of four cultivars [RGC-1066 (V1), RGC-1033 (V2), HG-2-20 (V3) and RGr-12-1(V4)] in main plots and five treatments of Jeevamrut application [control (Bn0), soil application 500 lit ha -1 at 30 DAS (Bn1), foliar spray (10%) at 30 DAS (Bn2), soil application 500 lit ha -1 + foliar spray (10%) at 30 DAS (Bn3) and soil application 500 lit ha -1 + foliar spray (10%) at 30 and 60 DAS (Bn4)] in sub-plots, thus 20 treatment combinations were laid out in split blot design with three replication.

Result and Discussion

Growth parameters Effect of cultivars

A critical examination of data from table 1 showed that RGC-1066 cultivar recorded significant higher chlorophyll content at 60 (4.11 mg g -1 ) and 90 DAS (2.74 mg g -1 ). It was significantly superior over V2 and V4 cultivars by 20.53 and 20.88 percent respectively at 60 DAS and by 17.60 and 20.53 percent at 90 DAS respectively. It was found at par with HG-2-20 at both stages i.e. 60 and 90 DAS. This is definitely due to cultivar's genetic trait to contain higher chlorophyll "a" and "b" content in leaves. Further data (Table 1) indicated that none of the cultivar significantly influenced the number of nodules plant -1 and dry weight of nodules at 30 DAS. However, at 60 DAS maximum number of nodules plant -1 (35.82) and dry weight of nodules (328.53 mg plant -1 ) were recorded by HG-2-20 cultivar and this might be due to profuse and low root system of the cultivar and just like soil microorganisms nature, more number of roots are found in upper soil which results in higher number of nodules then other cultivars (Sharma et al., 2019). Growth characters like root depth (81.99 cm) and dry weight of root (0.394 g) in table 2 was observed higher in RGC-1066 cultivar at harvest. The reason is, this cultivar is known as drought resistant or low water requirement cultivar, that's why it has deep root system and higher dry weight of root. (Ammaladinne et al., 2022) [3] [5] . A perusal of data from table 2 highlighted that Bn4 treatment got maximum root depth (78.83 cm) and dry weight of root (0.363 g) and this increase in root depth might be due to optimum moisture condition available for roots through soil application of Jeevamrut in addition with availability of essential nutrients and growth promoting substance which helps development of root system in both horizontal and vertical direction and turns into higher dry root weight.

Interaction effect of cultivars and jeevamrut

An appraisal of data (Table 3) showed that combined effect of cultivar and Jeevamrut significantly increased the number of nodules plant

Quality parameters Effect of cultivars

An analysis of data (Table 2) indicated that variation in clusterbean cultivars for protein content was found nonsignificant, however in terms of protein yield, HG-2-20 cultivar recorded highest protein yield (368.66 kg ha -1 ). This is due to fact that protein yield is product of protein content and yield of the crop and in yield HG-2-20 found significantly superior. Further data presented in table 2 pointed that HG-2-20 cultivar had highest gum content (28.09%) and gum yield (618.32 kg ha -1 ). However, it was at par with V1 cultivar and was statistically superior over V2 and V4 by 8.75 and 13.13 percent respectively in respect of gum content, and this is due to genetic superiority of the cultivar over others. Similar findings were given by Sharma et al., 2019 [10] . 5 and6) showed that nitrogen and potassium uptake by seed and stover and total nitrogen and potassium uptake were found significant by HG-2-20 cultivar. Further data from table 5 and 6) indicated that HG-2-20 cultivar found significant superior in phosphorus uptake by seed and in total uptake but found non-significant in stover. This is due to fact that uptake is function of nutrient content multiply to yield and in yield cultivar HG-2-20 found significantly superior. [8] . A perusal of data from table 4 depicted that Jeevamrut treatments had ability to produce statistical difference in nutrient content in plant. Bn4 treatment recorded with highest nitrogen (3.39% and 1.15%), phosphorus (0.35% and 0.16%) and potassium (0.83% and 1.47%) content in seed and stover, respectively. It seems to be positive due to effective utilization of nutrients by both way i.e., photosynthesis and plant root system. Soil and foliar application of organic formulation created a better supply of nutrients gradually as per requirement of crop root by desorption reaction. Further data from table 5 and 6 showed that nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium uptake by seed, stover and total uptake were found significant higher in HG-2-20 cultivar. The reason is nutrient uptake is simply multiplication of nutrient content in plant and yield of seed and stover. An analysis of present experiment shows that nutrient content and yield simultaneously influenced by various methods of Jeevamrut application therefore huge increase was recorded in nutrient uptake by application of Bn4 treatment. Our present findings are also supported by the work of Sharma et al. (2019) [10] .

Effect of jeevamrut

Soil properties 3.1 Effect of cultivars

Data illustrated in table 7 indicated that cultivars were found ineffective to produce variation in organic carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium content in soil after harvest. Further analysis of data shown in table 8 and fig. 1 revealed that none of the cultivar significantly affected the dehydrogenase activity, actinomycetes and fungal population in soil at harvest, however, HG-2-20 cultivar recorded highest bacterial population (4.41 c.f.u 10 6 g -1 soil) in soil at harvest which was statistically superior over RGC-1033 and RGr-12-1 cultivars by 12.8 and 8.9 percent, respectively. This is definitely due to maximum number of nodules were found in HG-2-20 cultivar (Table 1) and bacterial activity has direct correlation with nodules. (Manivannan et al., 2009) [7]

Effect of jeevamrut

A critical inspection of experimental data (Table 7) unveiled that Bn4 treatment of Jeevamrut achieved highest organic carbon (0.127%), nitrogen (130.66 kg ha -1 ), phosphorus (21.20 kg ha -1 ) and potassium (197.85 kg ha -1 ) content in soil after harvest. It is the reason of 2-times soil application of Jeevamrut at 30 and 60 DAS as Bn4 treatment which significantly boosted the microbial population in soil and cause rapid mineralization of organic matter resulted fast solubilisation and mobilization of macro nutrients (N, P and K) in soil (Atal et al., 2017) [4] . It is obvious from data (table 8 and fig. 1) that Jeevamrut treatment had significant impact on biological property of soil. Bn4 treatment recorded maximum dehydrogenase activity (61.33 µg TPF g-1 soil) and higher bacterial (5.55 c.f.u 10 6 g -1 soil), actinomycetes (3.88 c.f.u 10 5 g -1 soil) and fungal (3.88 c.f.u 10

Conclusion

Thus, on the basis of one year experimentation, it can be concluded that cultivation of HG-2-20 cultivar along with the soil application 500 liter ha -1 + Foliar spray (10%) at 30 and 60 DAS of Jeevamrut is a remunerative approach in maximizing the crop productivity under organic cultivation system.

References

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