AGRONOMIC MANAGEMENT FOR PIGEON PEA UNDER DROUGHT CONDITIONS

Field experiments were conducted during kharif 2004 and kharif 2005 in rainfed conditions on red soil to study the effect of different drought management practices such as application of FYM in soil, seed coating with 2% solution of CaCl(2) or KH2PO4 foliar spray of 2% urea, 2% KCl at flowering, cultural mulch (utilizing the crop residues as mulch material), opening shallow furrow between two rows and water spray at flowering on the growth and yield of redgram variety, VBN 1 in red soil of Pudukkottai district of Tamil Nadu under rainfed conditions. These practices were compared with the normal practice of application of recommended dose of fertilizer alone. From the two years of study, it was found that, application of recommended dose of fertilizer (RDF) + cultural mulch two times records the maximum yield of 568 kg/ha and 557 kg/ha during 2004 and 2005 respectively. This was comparable to application of RDF alone. The net profit and BCR were Rs.4060/ha; 1.5 and Rs.4015; 1.61 during 2004 and 2005 respectively.