Physiological and yield response of mung bean (Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek) to exogenous application of bioregulatory molecules

Mung bean is an important short duration pulse crop widely preferred for its nutritional value and soil nitrogen-fixation properties. However, due to physiological limitations its productivity is very low. The application of bioregulatory molecules is an option to overcome the physiological limitations. Therefore, an experiment was conducted with an aim to analyse the bioregulatory molecules induced physiological performance for yield using two mung bean varieties viz. IPM-2-3 and Pusa Vishal. Foliar treatments of bioregulatory molecules, viz. Ascorbic acid @ 10 mM, Salicylic acid @ 0.5 mM, Calcium nitrate @ 75 mM, Thiourea @10 mM, Trehalose @ 30 mM and water spray as control were applied at flowering stage. Foliar application of bioregulatory molecules enhanced yield in mung bean by improving greenness, level of photosynthetic pigments, Fv/Fm ratio, ETR, NPQ, photosynthesis, canopy temperature depression, biomass, pod number, pod weight, test weight, and dry matter partitioning towards the economic yield. Besides this, for yield enhancement IPM-2-3 responded better to bioregulatory molecules treatments than Pusa Vishal. Our results suggest that exogenous application of bioregulatory molecules can be recommended to the farmers as a promising and sustainable strategy to enhance the grain yield of mung bean crop. Among these low-cost and effective bioregulatory molecules may be used to develop economically viable formulations for yield boosting of mung bean crop in future.