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Research Article

Agricultural Science Digest, volume 42 issue 6 (december 2022) : 671-679

Response of Soil Moisture Regime of Relay Grass Pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) to Seed Priming and Foliar Fertilization in New Alluvial Zone of West Bengal

Purabi Banerjee1,*, V. Visha Kumari1, Rajib Nath1
1Department of Agronomy, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Mohanpur-741 252, West Bengal, India.
Cite article:- Banerjee Purabi, Kumari Visha V., Nath Rajib (2022). Response of Soil Moisture Regime of Relay Grass Pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) to Seed Priming and Foliar Fertilization in New Alluvial Zone of West Bengal . Agricultural Science Digest. 42(6): 671-679. doi: 10.18805/ag.D-5186.

ABSTRACT

Background: Indian agricultural sector requires a huge consumption of total available water for the sake of optimum crop production. The modern era of water scarcity necessitates the escalation of water use efficiency of crops to secure higher portion of economic harvests per drop use of water in agriculture. Against this background, it is requires to introduce lesser water consuming crops like pulses, oilseeds etc with innovative and cost-effective agronomic interventions for the purpose of contributing towards conservation of more water.

Methods: A field experiment was conducted at District Seed Farm, ‘A-B’ Block of Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, West Bengal, during subsequent winter seasons of 2017-18 and 2018-19 to evaluate the effect of seed priming with molybdenum and foliar fertilization on moisture utilization of relay grass pea, variety Ratan (Bio L-212) without irrigation, using seed priming with Ammonium molybdate and foliar spray of 2% Urea and 0.5% NPK (19:19:19) in different combinations. 

Result: Maximum water use efficiency of 16.65 and 14.80 kg ha-1 mm-1 in the respective years were recorded with seed priming combined with twice foliar spray of 0.5% NPK (19:19:19) with the highest yield and moisture consumption. Total soil moisture content was found to be an exponential function of dry aerial biomass, but shared a polynomial correlation with leaf area index at different growth stages of grass pea. However, water use efficiency exhibited strong and polynomial correlation with seed yield and stover yield of grass pea in both the years. The combination of seed priming with Ammonium molybdate @ 0.5 g kg-1 seed along with a twice foliar spray of 0.5% NPK (19:19:19) will be a profitable technology for the relay grass pea growers in new alluvial zone of West Bengal.

INTRODUCTION

In a country, generally, the lion’s share of water is utilized for agriculture in the form of irrigation. With the development of societies, the requirement for water for non-agricultural purposes rises. Automatically, there is a gradual decline in the availability of water for the agricultural sector. Moreover, changing the environmental scenario adds more to this worldwide deficit of water. Under these circumstances, the principal challenge to combat water scarcity in agriculture is to boost up water use efficiency to ensure more crop per drop use of water (Vadez et al., 2011; Saravanan et al., 2018).
 
In India, pulse crops like chickpea, lentil, grass pea are raised by utilizing the residual soil moisture under rice fallows. Among them, grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) is an outstanding crop to endure moisture stress (Gusmao et al., 2012; Kalita and Chakrabarty, 2017). Commonly it is grown as a relay crop by utilizing the left out soil moisture after winter rice (Bhowmick et al., 2014; Navaz et al., 2017). The excellent ability of grass pea to flourish with minimal external inputs (Nazrul and Shaheb, 2015) under adverse climatic situations like temperature extremes, very poor soil types (Dixit et al., 2016) has enlighted the crop as ‘poor man’s pulse crop’ (Parihar and Gupta, 2016).
 
Under field conditions, difficulties for cultivation under rice fallow like poorly fertile soil, rapid depletion in soil moisture reserve after kharif rice harvest lead to drop in production potential (Bhowmick et al., 2014). To confront these adversities, seed priming is a fantastic pre-sowing way out through partial hydration of seeds which stimulates the metabolic activity of seeds, improving seed germination characteristics (Pakbaz et al., 2014; Aliloo et al., 2014). Priming increases crop yield due to accelerated crop growth and early flowering (Kaur et al., 2005) which allows the crop to escape the late-season drought and heat stresses. Besides, there are several literature regarding mitigation of moisture stress through foliar application of agrochemicals i.e., urea, potassium chloride, boron, etc. in relay rabi crops (Math et al., 2014; Yadav et al., 2021) at the flowering stage when the crops face terminal moisture stress due to continuous decrease in soil moisture. A crop grown under receeding moisture conditions devoid of irrigation experiences water deficit at critical stages, which hampers the nutrient uptake and final yield. Foliar nutrition with N at the reproductive stage of pulses may aid in the alleviation of nitrogen deficiency (Das and Jana, 2016). Side by side, a sufficient supply of P and K can curtail the negative impacts of drought stress through osmo-regulation and maintenance of leaf water potential.

For the upliftment of production during this moisture stress period, maintenance of plant water regime through improved uptake mechanisms as well as the elimination of excess loss moisture through processes like transpiration are of serious concern. The present experiment was planned to standardize the most effective schedule of seed priming and foliar fertilization for relay grass pea for better use of residual soil moisture for enhancement of production potential of relay sown grass pea in a new alluvial zone of West Bengal.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A two years field experiment was conducted at District Seed Farm, ‘A-B’ block, (22°93’ N latitude, 88°53’ E longitude and 9.75 m above mean sea level) of Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Kalyani, West Bengal, India during two subsequent winter seasons (October-March) of 2017-18 and 2018-19. The experimental soil was sandy loam in texture with pH 7.3, EC 0.18 dS m-1, organic carbon 0.56%, available N 231.28 kg ha-1, P2O5 34.51 kg ha-1, available K2O 188.83 kg ha-1. The experiment was laid out in a factorial randomized block design replicated thrice comprising two seed priming levels viz. S1: No seed priming and S2: Seed priming with Ammonium molybdate @ 0.5 g kg-1 seed and five foliar spray levels viz. F1: No foliar spray, F2: 2% Urea spray at pre-flowering stage, F3: 2% Urea spray at pre-flowering stage + 15 days after 1st spray, F4: 0.5% NPK (19:19:19) spray at pre-flowering stage and F5: 0.5% NPK (19:19:19) spray at pre-flowering stage+15 days after 1st spray. Grass pea [Variety Ratan (Bio L-212)] seeds were broadcasted @ 80 kg ha-1 treated with Rhizobium biofertilizer @ 20 g kg-1 of seed a week before harvesting of rice crop [variety Satabdi (IET 4786)] in both the years. Application of basal dose of fertilizers and irrigation were completely excluded for grass pea cultivation. Total rainfall amounting to 9.4 and 1.4 mm were received during the crop growth period, whereas the mean maximum temperature of 28.2 and 28.3°C and minimum temperatures of 16 and 15.2°C were recorded in the first and second year of experimentation, respectively. The following formulae were used to calculate various parameters:
 
               (Black, 1965)

                                           (Black, 1965)
Where,
Ai = Apparent specific gravity of soil (or, bulk density of soil, dimensionless).
D = Depth of soil (mm).
 
        (Watson,1952)
 
 
 
Where,
ΔS = Profile water contribution (mm).
Ms, Mh = Moisture content of the soil (%) at sowing and harvest, respectively.
 
  ER + IR + ΔS                   (Anonymous, 1962)
 
Where,
CU = Consumptive use of water by a crop during the entire growing season (mm).
ER = Effective rainfall during that crop growing season (mm).
IR = Irrigation water applied to the crop (mm).
Data obtained from different parameters were analyzed by the method of analysis of variance (Gomez and Gomez, 1984).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Total soil moisture status in the soil column at different growth stages of Lathyrus
 
Overall soil moisture reserve was gradually decreased throughout the growing season of grass pea irrespective of seed priming and foliar spray levels as the crop was solely dependent on the residual soil moisture. Fig 1 and Fig 2 revealed that total soil moisture content in the soil column was maximum at the branching period. However, the moisture content of the soil column was higher during the 1st year due to the higher amount of rainfall received as compared to the 2nd year. Seed priming with Ammonium molybdate @ 0.5 g kg-1 seed following 0.5% NPK (19:19:19) spray at pre-flowering and 15 days after 1st spray i.e., S2F5 recorded minimum total soil moisture content at flowering (47.16 and 48.30 mm), pod development stage (31.93 and 19.46 mm) and at harvest (15.19 and 9.26 mm) during both the years respectively (Table 1) implying maximum water uptake. However, the treatment without seed priming and foliar fertilization i.e., S1F1 recorded maximum moisture content in the soil in those mentioned stages.
 

Fig 1: Total soil moisture content at different growth stages of lathyrus during 2017-18.


 

Fig 2: Total soil moisture content at different growth stages of lathyrus during 2018-19.


 

Table 1: Total soil moisture status at different growth stages of grass pea in relation to seed priming and different foliar sprays of nutrients.


 
The treatment S2F5 was found with the lowest amount of moisture reserve possibly due to higher water uptake by the plants. Phosphorous augmented deeper root proliferation that helped in better water uptake than the other treatments. Potassium has been reported to reduce the negative effects of soil moisture stress in crop plants  (Sadaf and Tahir, 2017; Chaudhari et al., 2018). More specifically, the presence of potassium in the foliar sprays prevented excess moisture loss through transpiration by the closure of stomata (Subbaramma et al., 2017) along coupled with greater uptake of soil moisture (Zain et al., 2014) under deficit moisture conditions.

Dry aerial biomass and leaf area index are important parameters indicating the moisture uptake pattern of a crop (Table 2). Advancement in these parameters implies improved water uptake and consumption in plants. Total soil moisture content was found to be an exponential function of dry aerial biomass in both years (Fig 3).   On the other hand, leaf area index of grass pea was found to be polynomially correlated with total soil moisture content (Fig 4).
 

Table 2: Dry aerial biomass accumulation and leaf area index (LAI) of lathyrus at different growth stages as influenced by seed priming and different foliar sprays of nutrients.


 

Fig 3: Response of total soil moisture content to dry aerial biomass of grass pea at different growth stages during 2017-18 and 2018-19.


 

Fig 4: Relation between leaf area index and total soil moisture content at different growth stages of grass pea during 2017-18 and 2018-19.


 
 
Profile water contribution of Lathyrus
 
Distinctive profile water contribution from soil reserve was recognized in different soil layers with respect to Lathyrus cultivation during rabi seasons of 2017-18 and 2018-19 in new alluvial soils of West Bengal (Fig 5 and Fig 6). Among the different treatment combinations, S2F5 received the highest-profile contribution during both the experimental years (Table 3).
 

Table 3: Soil profile water contribution in grass pea at different depths of soil in relation to seed priming and different foliar sprays of nutrients.


 

Fig 5: Profile water contribution at different depths of soil of grass pea during 2017-18.


 

Fig 6: Profile water contribution at different depths of soil of grass pea during 2018-19.


 
Seasonal consumptive use of water
 
The seasonal consumptive use of water by grass pea was influenced by only profile contribution and precipitation in the form of rainfall as no external irrigation was provided. Due to high rainfall during 1st year, the seasonal consumptive use of water was higher as compared to the subsequent year. The maximum seasonal consumptive use was recorded with the S2F5 (117.83 mm and 112.63 mm) during 2017-18 and 2018-19 respectively (Table 4).   
 

Table 4: Yield, consumptive use of water and water use efficiency of grass pea as influenced by seed priming and different foliar sprays of nutrients.


 
 
Water use efficiency (WUE) of Lathyrus
 
Highest water use efficiency was achieved with S2F5 treatment (16.65 and 14.80 kg ha-1 mm-1) during 2017-18 and 2018-19 respectively (Table 4). Performance of grass pea in terms of yield under S2F5 treatment was best among all the treatment combinations due to maximum utilization of residual soil moisture during all phenological stages. Maximum improvement in WUE under treatment S2F5 maybe because of the higher yield as a result of the balanced nutrition combined with reduced loss of water due to the stomatal closure and falling rate of transpiration as supported by the work of Fahad et al., (2017).
 
Water use efficiency was polynomially correlated with seed yield and stover yield of grass pea in both the years (Fig 7 and 8). About 96.11 and 91.44% variations in seed yield could be contributed to the variation in WUE of grass pea in the respective years. Likewise, variations in stover yield were 91.19 and 91.13% which could be attributed to the variation in WUE during the two years.
 

Fig 7: Relation between water use efficiency and seed yield of grass pea during 2017-18 and 2018-19.


 

Fig 8: Relation between water use efficiency and stover yield of grass pea during 2017-18 and 2018-19.


 
Many researchers have reported that fertilization with K had a significant role in plants to alleviate the effect of the moisture shortage through improved WUE along with lower leaf ET (Sardans et al., 2012; Grzebisz et al., 2013 and Hasanuzzaman et al., 2018). K broadly maintains cellular osmo-regulation, which helps in balancing the turgor and expansion of cells (Yadav et al., 2021). This whole process is required for root and shoot expansion. Kinds of literature has established the role of K in regulating the water economy of plants and thus optimizing WUE (Egilla et al., 2005; Kanai et al., 2011; Majeed et al., 2016). However, poor seed yield owing to moisture deficit could be overcome through increment of K supply (Danial et al., 2010; Taia et al., 2016).

CONCLUSION

The combination of seed priming with Ammonium molybdate @ 0.5 g kg-1 seed along with a foliar spray of 0.5% NPK (19:19:19) at the pre-flowering stage and 15 days after the 1st spray may be recommended as a profitable technology for efficient production with better water use efficiency of relay grass pea in new alluvial zone of West Bengal.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

None.

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