Response of Little millet (Panicum sumatrense) to organic management practices under rainfed condition

Introduction

Little millet is one of the minor millet, which belongs to the family Poaceae. It is another reliable catch crop because of its earliness and resistance to adverse agro-climatic conditions of high drought as well as water logging. It is grown throughout India and a traditional crop of Karnataka. It is mostly cropped with other millets, pulses and oilseeds. It is generally consumed as rice and any recipe that demands staple rice can be prepared using little millet. It is described as a "quick -growing, short duration cereal which withstands both drought and water logging". Doubtless this is a valuable crop in difficult situations. It occurs as a wild crop in Northern India and South-Eastern Asia. It will yield some grain and useful fodder under very poor conditions. Millets contains 60.9 g carbohydrates, 12.3g protein, 8.0 g fibre, 3.3g mineral, 2.8mg iron, and 31 mg calcium per 100 gm and food energy 331 kilo calorie (Sarita, 2016; Vanithasri et al., 2012; Banerjee and Maitra, 2018) [8,11,2] . They are rich source of phytochemicals and micronutrients. It also provides different health benefits as it improves glycemic control, inhibits hyper-insulinemia and decreases lipid concentrations in patient with type-2 diabetes (Jali et al., 2012) [6] . The crop is a balanced and staple food for tribal and economically poor sections of the population. It provides low priced proteins, minerals and vitamins in the form of sustainable food. The stover is a good fodder for cattle. Each 100 g little millet grain contains 65.5 g carbohydrate, 10.1 g protein, 3.89 g fat, 346 Kcal energy, 7.7 g dietary fiber, 16.1 mg calcium, 130 mg phosphorus, 91 mg magnesium, 1.8 mg zinc, 1.2 mg iron, 0.26 mg thiamin, 0.05 mg riboflavin, 1.3 mg niacin and 362µg folic acid (Venkatesh Bhat et al. 2018) [12] . Millets are small seeded coarse cereals; that belongs to the family Poaceae, widely cultivated in the world, mainly in Eurasia and Africa in arid and tropical regions. Minor millets were important food crops of the past and presently claimed as the future foods considering the ill effects of global warming and climate change pronounced more prominently in fragile ecological conditions. These can be adapted to a wide range of temperature, moistureregime and input conditions and can be a potential option for providing food and feed to millions of smallholders of drylands and domestic animals. Moreover, as C4 plant, millets sequester carbon, thereby adding to CO2 reduction opportunities, contribute to improved agro biodiversity by their diversity and allow mutually beneficial intercropping with other vital crops (BrahmaChari et al. 2018) [2] . The acreage of small millets in India is around 7.0 lakh ha with productivity of 633 kg ha-1 (Anbukkani et al. 2017) [1] . Organic manures are the key components in Integrated nutrient Management of millets under rained conditions. The normal requirement of FYM for different crops ranges from 5 to 15 t ha -1 . However, the availability of organic manures is decreasing due to the reduction in cattle population and hence, an alternate and locally available organic fertilizer source needs the demand and for avoiding complete reliance on organic manures. Recycling of crop residues/stubbles into useful manure is a sound option and is the need of the hour, apart from being an environmentally viable technology (Sudheendra). Farmyard manure occupies an important position among organic manures. FYM seems to act directly by increasing crop yield by acceleration of respiratory process or by cell permeability or by hormonal growth action. Under organic management, nutrients release and crop demand synchrony is very much required; hence, a thorough understanding of nutrients release pattern from organic sources is essential to avoid nutrients stress. "FYM application has been reported to improve crop growth by supplying plant nutrients including micronutrients as well as improving soil physical, chemical, and biological properties" [Dejene, et al., 2011] [4] . "Faster water infiltration rate due to enhanced soil aggregation is the other benefit of FYM amendments to soil".

Material and Methods

The field study was conducted during kharif seasons of 2019, 2020 and 2022 at Agricultural Research Station, Tiptur. The experiment was laid out in factorial randomized complete block design in which Factor 1comprised of two spacing (S 1: 22.5 cm × 7.5 cm and S 2: 30 cm × 7.5 cm) and Factor 2 comprised of Six nutrient levels through organic manures (N) (N 1: 75% N equivalent through FYM + FYM 5 t/ha, N 2: 100% N equivalent through FYM + FYM 5 t/ha, N 3: 125% N equivalent through FYM + FYM 5 t/ha, N 4: 75% N equivalent through Vermicompost + FYM 7.5 t/ha, N 5: 100% N equivalent through Vermicompost + FYM 7.5t/ha and N 6: 125% N equivalent through Vermicompost + FYM 7.5t/ha). The N Equivalent organic manures supplied through FYM and Vermicompost. The Recommended N equivalent FYM, Vermicompost and recommended FYM are applied 15 days before sowing of Foxtail millet. The Little millet sown 15 days after organic manures applied and little millet was harvested at 100 to 110 days after sowing. The initial soil available nutrient analysed by soil sampling before organic manures are applied. The observations like Plant height (cm), Grain yield (kg/ha) and straw yield (kg/ha) were recorded at harvest. The mean values were subjected to t-test analysis.

Results and Discussion

1. Grain yield (kg/ha) Among spacing narrow spacing of 22.5 cm X 7.5 cm (S 1 ) found optimum for Little millet to get significantly higher grain yield (2517 kg/ha, 2402 kg/ha, 2519 kg/ha and 2480 kg/ha, respectively) during 2019, 2020, 2021 and pooled data respectively as compared to wider spacing of 30 cm X 7.5 cm (2371 kg/ha, 2232 kg/ha, 2369 kg/ha and 2324 kg/ha, respectively) (Table.1). Application of 125% N equivalent Vermicompost + FYM @ 7.5 t/ha (N 6 ) recorded significantly higher grain yield (2776 kg/ha, 2570 kg/ha, 2806 kg/ha and 27180 kg/ha) in 2019, 2020, 2021 and pooled data respectively (Table .1) as compared to other organic nutrient sources and levels. Among the interactions, growing of Little millet with a spacing of 22.5 cm X 7.5 cm with application of 125% N equivalent Vermicompost + FYM @ 5.0 t/ha (S 1 N 6 ) recorded significantly higher grain yield (2783 kg/ha, 2641 kg/ha, 2813 kg/ha and 2746 kg/ha) in 2019, 2020, 2021 and pooled data respectively (Table .1) as compared to other interaction treatments. The significantly higher yield might be due to the higher production efficiency that has been reflected through improvement in different yield attributing characters. Similar findings were reported by Chamely et al. (2015) [3] and (Hari Kumar et al., 2022) [5] .

Among spacing narrow spacing of 30 cm X 7.5 cm found optimum for Little millet to get significantly higher grain yield (5634 kg/ha, 3909 kg/ha, 5660 kg/ha and 5068 kg/ha, respectively) during 2019, 2020, 2021 and pooled data respectively as compared to wider spacing of 22.5 cm X 7.5 cm (5215 kg/ha, 3254 kg/ha, 5190 kg/ha and 4553 kg/ha, respectively) (Table.1). Application of 125% N equivalent Vermicompost + FYM @ 7.5 t/ha (N 6 ) recorded significantly higher Straw yield (6444 kg/ha, 3876 kg/ha, 5604 kg/ha and 5308 kg/ha) in 2019, 2020, 2021 and pooled data respectively (Table .1) as compared to other organic nutrient sources and levels. Among the interactions, growing of Little millet with a spacing of 22.5 cm X 7.5 cm with application of 125% N equivalent Vermicompost + FYM @ 5.0 t/ha recorded significantly higher grain yield (6903 kg/ha, 3410 kg/ha, 6167 kg/ha and 5493 kg/ha) in 2019, 2020, 2021 and pooled data respectively (Table .1) as compared to other interaction treatments. The beneficial response of organic manures to dry matter and yield attributes might also be attributed to the availability of sufficient amounts of easily utilizable from of plant nutrients throughout the growth period and especially at critical growth periods of crop resulting in better uptake, vigour plant and superior yield attributes. The results were found to be similar with Togas et al. (2017) [10] .

Harvest index (HI)

Among spacing narrow spacing of 22.5 cm X 7.5 cm found optimum for Little milletto get significantly higher grain yield (0.328, 0.431, 0.329 and 0.354, respectively) during 2019, 2020, 2021 and pooled data respectively as compared to wider spacing of 30 cm X 7.5 cm (0.298 kg/ha, 0.369 kg/ha, 0.397 kg/ha and 0.314 kg/ha, respectively) (Table.1).

Among the spacing there is no significant difference in Plant height during 2019, 2020, 2021 and pooled data (Table .2). Application of 125% N equivalent Vermicompost + FYM @ 7.5 t/ha (N 6 ) recorded significantly higher grain yield (130.37 cm, 125.59 cm, 131.66 cm and 129.11 cm) in 2019, 2020, 2021 and pooled data respectively (Table .2) as compared to other organic nutrient sources and levels. Among the interactions, growing of Little millet with a spacing of 22.5 cm X 7.5 cm with application of 125% N equivalent Vermicompost + FYM @ 5.0 t/ha recorded significantly higher grain yield (122.31 cm, 128.17 cm, 133.77 cm and 133.57 cm) in 2019, 2020, 2021 and pooled data respectively (Table .2) as compared to other interaction treatments. Organic manure influence both growth and yield by improving supply of plant micronutrients need and thus help to sustain crop productivity (Montaghian et al. 2008). This resulted in the higher plant height and the results are in close conformity with the findings of Raundal and Patil (2017) [7] and Togas et al. (2017) [10] .