Growth and yield of wheat as affected by tillage practices, seed priming and nutrient management under rain fed conditions

The present study was conducted on wheat for two years from 2020-2022 to evaluate the effect of seed priming, tillage practices and nutrient management on growth and yield studies of crop under rainfed conditions at CSK Himachal Pradesh Krishi Vishvavidyalaya, Palampur. The experiment was laid out in factorial randomized block design with three factors. Factor I (Tillage practices) consisted of Conventional tillage (CT), Conventional tillage+ mulch (CT+M) and Zero tillage+ mulch (ZT+M); Factor II (Seed priming) consisted of Hydropriming and micronutrient (Zn, Mn) priming; Factor III (Nutrient management practices) consisted of recommended dose of fertilizers (RDF) and Integrated nutrient management. An additional treatment of control was also kept for general comparison of results. Tillage practices and nutrient management significantly effected growth and yield studies of wheat. However, seed priming had no significant effect on various parameters. Growth and yield of wheat were found to be significantly superior under conventional tillage+mulch (CT+M) as compared to other tillage practices. Maximum height (108.4 cm), dry matter accumulation (896.7 g/m2), leaf area index (2.43) and yield (9.19 t/ha) of wheat was obtained with CT+M. Zero tillage+mulch being the second best treatment proved to be better than conventional tillage. The growth and yield of wheat was significantly enhanced with integrated nutrient management as compared to recommended dose of fertilizers. Among different treatment combinations, T6 (CT+M, Hydro, Int) was found to be best in terms of both growth and yield studies in wheat under rainfed conditions.