Importance of Foliar Nutrition for Pigeon Pea (Cajanus cajan L.)

Generally, the nutrition for the crops may be given as basal, foliar and fertigation methods. But, most
of the pulse crop is sensitive to flower dropping, which requires foliar application for flower setting and
pod formation. To know the facts the field experiments were conducted to study the influence of
different foliar nutrition on pod setting percentage, yield and economics of redgram (Cajanus cajan
(L.) under irrigated condition at Regional Research Station, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Paiyur,
Tamil Nadu, India in Kharif season of 2016-17. To study the effect of different nutrient sources were
applied as foliar application of 2% DAP twice at flowering and 15 days thereafter first spray (T1), Foliar
application of TNAU pulse wonder at 5 kg/ha at peak flowering (T2), Foliar application of 0.5% MAP
twice at flowering and 15 days thereafter first spray (T3). Foliar application of CCC 200 ppm twice at
flowering and 15 days thereafter (T4), and Control (water spray) (T1). It concluded that application of
0.5% mono ammonium phosphate (MAP) at flowering and 15 days after first spray recorded higher
grain and stalk yield of 1522 and 6222 kg ha-1 respectively and it was recorded higher gross income
of Rs. 91320 , net income of Rs. 50520 and B:C ratio of 2.2. It recorded 25% higher yield over control
(water spray) and 12% higher over application of CCC 200 ppm twice at flowering and 15 days after
first spray. Overall, we emphasized the importance of foliar spray and its direct nutritive value to
increase the crop yield.