Effect of Micronutrients on Productivity and Profitability of Pea (Pisum sativum sub sp. hortense)

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of micronutrients on productivity and profitability of pea (Pisum sativum sub sp. hortense) at the Vegetable Research Farm, Department of Horticulture, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, during the winter season of 2019- 2020. The experiment was laid out in the Randomized Block Design comprising of 9 treatments including control with different concentrations of boron and zinc applied to the pea crop viz., Control, Boron-20(0.06%), Boron-20(0.09%), ZnSo4 (0.03%), ZnSo4 (0.05%), Boron-20(0.06%) + ZnSo4(0.03%), Boron-20(0.06%) + ZnSo4(0.05%), Boron-20(0.09%)+ ZnSo4(0.03%) and Boron-20(0.09%)+ZnSo4 (0.05%) which were replicated thrice. Garden Pea variety “Azad Pea-3” was sown at row to row spacing of 30 cm x plant to plant spacing of 10 cm. The crop was uniformly fertilized by 20 kg N, 40 kg P2O5, 40 kg K2O /ha through urea and diammonium phosphate and muriate of potash. However, Zinc and boron was applied through zinc sulphate and borax as per the requirement of the treatments. The results indicated that the application B-20(0.09%) + ZnSO4(0.05%) recorded the highest quantity of seeds per pod (9.27g) number of pods per plant (25.63), yield per plant (64.23g), fruit yield (135.37 q/ha)  which was closely followed by application of B-20(0.09%)+ZnSO4(0.03%). Further, application B-20(0.09%) + ZnSO4(0.05%) recoded higher B:C ratio (4.06) as compared to control (2.72). Thus, application of B-20(0.09%) + ZnSO4(0.05%) was found to the best treatment among all the treatments in improving the productivity of garden pea for the resource poor farmers of India.