Abstract

To study the effect of irrigation and sulphur on Indian mustard, a field experiment was conducted at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi during crop season of 2007-2008 and 2008-2009. The experiment was carried out in split plot design with three replications. The treatments consisted of three levels (no irrigation, one irrigation at 45 days after sowing (DAS) and two irrigations at 45 DAS and 90 DAS) of irrigation in main plots, and four levels (0, 15, 30 and 45 kg S/ha) of sulphur in sub-plots. The results showed that in both the years of experimentation, application of two irrigations significantly increased plant height and number of primary and secondary branches per plant over one irrigation, which resulted in significantly higher dry matter accumulation and forage yield with two irrigations as compared to one irrigation. Also, application of two irrigations being on par with one irrigation, significantly increased sulphur content in forage over no irrigation, which resulted in increased sulphur uptake by crop in both the years of study. The increasing level of sulphur increased plant height, dry matter accumulation. Application of 45 kg S/ha produced more number of primary branches than control during both the years of study and other levels of sulphur remained on par with each other, whereas number of secondary branches/plant increased significantly with increasing level of sulphur up to 30 kg/ha in both the years of study. Forage yield of mustard increased significantly with the successive increase in the level of applied sulphur in both the years. Sulphur content in forage and sulphur uptake increased significantly with increasing level of sulphur.

Key words: Indian mustard, irrigation, fertilizer, forage yield, sulphur uptake.