Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

EFFECT OF MOISTURE CONSERVATION PRACTICES ON DIFFERENT GROWTH INDICES AND CHLOROPHYLL CONTENT OF PEARL MILLET [PENNISETUM GLAUCUM (L.) R. BR. EMEND STUNTZ] HYBRIDS

Sheeshpal Choudhary, L.R. Yadav, A.C. Shivran, Meena Choudhary, Ramesh Chand Bana and Shiv Prasad Daroga

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted under loamy sand soil during two consecutive kharif seasons of 2018 and 2019 at Agronomy farm, Sri Karan Narendra College of Agriculture, Jobner, Jaipur to find out the best moisture conservation practices on different Phenological parameters of pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br. emend Stuntz] hybrids. Hybrids viz., RHB-173, RHB-177, MPMH-17 and HHB-67 in main plots and moisture conservation practices viz., control, dust mulch, straw mulch, plastic mulch and seed line mulching of FYM in sub plots were tested using split plot design replicated four. RHB-173 attained significantly higher net assimilation rate, crop growth rate and relative growth rate at all stages over RHB177, MPMH-17 and HHB-67. Hybrid HHB-67 observed higher leaf area ratio which was at par with hybrid MPMH-17 and significantly higher over RHB-173 and RHB-177 during both the years and in pooled data. Result showed that application of plastic mulch remained at par with straw mulch and significantly higher the leaf area index, leaf area duration, net assimilation rate, relative growth rate, crop growth and leaf area ratio at all stages and chlorophyll content of leaves at 40 DAS of pearl millet over control, dust mulch and seed line mulching of FYM but remained statistically at par with straw mulch during both the years and in pooled analysis.