Vol. 11, Issue 11 (2022)

Author(s):
Arakanti Chaitanya, Murali K and Anand SR

Abstract:
A field experiment was conducted during Rabi 2020 and 2021 at Research Institute on Organic framing (RIOF), University of Agricultural sciences, GKVK, Bengaluru to find out the effect of various crop geometries and organic nutrient levels on growth indices of Chia (Salvia hispanica L.). A two factorial randomized complete block design was employed with first factor as spacing and nutrient levels as second factor. The treatment includes five varied crop geometries spacings Viz., S₁- 60 cm × 30 cm, S₂- 75 cm × 15 cm, S₃- 75 cm × 30 cm, S₄- 90 cm × 15 cm, S₅ - 90 cm × 30 cm and three different organic nutrient levels viz., N₁ - 60 kg N equivalent ha^-1, N₂ - 80 kg N equivalent ha^-1 and N₃ - 100 kg N equivalent ha^-1. The pooled data results indicated that at 30 and 60 DAS 90 cm × 30 cm spacing resulted in higher leaf area (400.05 and 1240.44 cm² respectively). At 30 - 60 DAS and 60-harvest higher Absolute growth Rate- AGR (1.60, 2.87 g / plant / day respectively), Relative Growth Rate-RGR (0.0183 and 0.144 g /g / day) was observed with 90 cm × 30 cm, whereas higher Crop growth rate-CGR (10.95 and 20.49 g / m² / day respectively) was recorded with spacing of 75 cm × 15 cm. Among different nutrient levels application of 100 kg N equivalent ha^-1 recorded higher leaf area at 30, 60 DAS (357.30 and 1187.16 cm²). At 30 - 60 DAS and 60 - at harvest higher AGR (1.58 and 2.78 g / plant / day respectively), RGR (0.0180 and 0.0138 g / g / day) and CGR (9.40 and 16.68 g / m² / day respectively) was recorded with 100 kg N equivalent ha^-1. However, the interaction of spacing and nutrient levels on growth indices was found to be non-significant.