Vol. 11, Issue 9 (2022)

Author(s):
Eswaran A, Vijayalakshmi R, Sampathkumar T, Indirani R and Durai Singh R

Abstract:
This study examined efficacy of KCl vis-à-vis humic acid (HA) as water stress mitigating agents in deficit irrigation and their effectiveness on leaf area index, plant height and dry matter production. The experiment on groundnut-VRI 8 variety was conducted at Agricultural College and Research Institute, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India with Randomized Block Design consisting of ten treatments in three replications through drip irrigation system. Treatments were imposed to study the effects of deficit irrigation regimes, foliar application of KCl and humic acid so as to identify smart water stress mitigating agent between KCl and humic acid in face of deficit irrigation. The experimental study has demonstrated that KCl has emerged as smart water stress mitigating agent with an appreciable quantum of saving in irrigation water and its use efficiency in identifying an optimal deficit irrigation regime T₅ (75% ET_c + 1% KCl) though outperformed its counterpart of humic acid (HA).