Vol. 12, Issue 12 (2023)

Author(s):
OR Kale, PG Chavan, PS Dudde, PD Patil and SB Deshmukh

Abstract:
An agronomical investigation was carried out held during the kharif season of 2022- 23, at the Agronomy Experimental Farm Department, Agriculture college, Latur. To investigate the effect of moisture stress management practices on growth and yield in soybean (Glycine max L.) under rainfed condition. The experiment was designed using Randomized Block Design (RBD). The eight treatments were tested three times. The treatments were T₁ - Control, T₂- Straw mulching @ 2.5 ton ha^-1, T₃- Straw mulching @ 5.0 ton ha^-1, T₄- Hydrogel @ 2.5 Kg ha^-1, T₅- Potassium nitrate @ 2% at pre flowering stage, T₆- Potassium nitrate @ 2% at pre flowering and pod development stage, T₇- Kaolin @ 5% at pre flowering stage, T₈- Hoeing at 20 days after sowing. According to the experiment's findings, the Hydrogel treatment, which applied 2.5 kg/ha, significantly outperformed the other treatments in terms of growth attributes such as plant height, number of functional leaves, leaf area, number of branches, and accumulation of dry matter. It also demonstrated yield attributes such as number of seeds pod^-1, number of seeds plant^-1, weight of pod plant^-1, weight of seeds plant^-1, seed yield, straw yield, and biological yield. These results were comparable to those obtained from applying 5.0 tons of straw mulching and 2% potassium nitrate at the pre-flowering and pod development stages.