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*Corresponding author’s e-mail: vrjinjala@nau.in

Agric. Sci. Digest., 36 (4) 2016 : 291-294Print ISSN:0253-150X / Online ISSN:0976-0547

Effect of integrated nutrient management on baby corn (Zea mays L.)V.R. Jinjala*, H.M. Virdia, N.N. Saravaiya and A.D. Raj

Department of AgronomyNavsari Agricultural University, Navsari-396 450, Gujarat, India.Received: 16-02-2016 Accpeted: 08-10-2016 DOI: 10.18805/asd.v36i4.6470

ABSTRACTA field experiment was conducted during rabi season of 2011-12 on heavy black soil to study the effect of integratednutrient management on growth and yield of baby corn. The treatments comprising all possible combinations of five levelsof nitrogen (chemical and vermicompost fertilizer) with and without bio-fertilizer (Azotobacter and PSB) were laid out inrandomized block design with three replications. These were significantly higher with application of 100% RDN fromchemical fertilizer with bio-fertilizer over 100% RDN from vermicompost. The cob and fodder yields significantly differedwith different integrated nutrient management treatment. Significantly the higher growth and yield attributes yield andfodder yield were recorded with the application of 100% RDF from chemical fertilizer with bio-fertilizer. Application of100% RDN from chemical fertilizer with biofertilizer was recorded higher net returns over 100% RDN from vermicompost(Rs. 220775/ha) and BCR (12.54).

Key words: Baby corn, Bio-fertilizer, Nutrient management, Urea, Vermicompost.

INTRODUCTIONMaize (Zea mays L.) is considered as one of the

most important world cereals crop which served as staplefood more than any of the other cereal crops. Maize wasoriginated from America which was domesticated almost7000 years ago and it provides nutrients to human and aswall as animal, and used as a source of raw material for theproduction of oil, protein, starch, food sweeteners, alcoholicbeverages and fuel source. The cultivation of baby cornshows a successful result in countries like Thailand andTaiwan recently in India more attention is given to scientistsand farmers in order to find out its potentials for obtainingmore foreign earning as well as maximum returns to thegrowers. Baby corn is not genetically dwarf maize as thename implies but it is the immature ear of normally grownmaize. Unlike mature maize whose ear are too hard but thebaby corn ear are consume by human being as a vegetable.Since the harvesting and de-husking of crop is carried outby manually, India having abundant of labourers and theyare available at a cheaper rate also and has a greater potentialin term of its production and exporting (Dadarwal et al.,2009). One hundred grams of baby corn are found to containin 89.10 per cent moisture, 8.20 g carbohydrates, 1.90 gprotein, 28.00 mg calcium, 86.00 mg phosphorus, 0.10 mgiron, 0.50 mg thiamine, 0.08 mg riboflavin and 11.00 mgascorbic acid (Paroda, 1994). In Taiwan and India recentlybaby corn has gained popularity as a vegetable in state likeDelhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Karnataka andAndhra Pradesh. Maize occupies an area of 66 lakh hectareswith production of 133 lakh tones and productivity of 2015

kg ha-1 in India (Singhal, 2003). Gujarat occupies an area of4 lakh hectares, with production of 6.19 lakh tones andproductivity of 1547 kg ha-1. The application of chemicalfertilizer may assist in obtaining maximum production of babycorn but keeping in mind that chemical fertilizer may lead tohazardous effect on environmental health beside increasingproduction cost as such the judicious uses of fertilizers fromdifferent source will maintain the environmental health andsustainability. (Dadarwal et al., 2009). However, integratednutrient management (INM) is a judicious of the fertilizersor manures from different sources will maintain theenvironmental sustainability. However, the adoption of INMpractices will reduce the production cost, thereby increasingthe economic returns to the farmers and also increases thesupply and availability of soil nutrients to the crop as wellas increasing the activity of beneficial soil microorganismdue to availability of more organic matter content.MATERIALS AND METHODS

A field experiment was conducted at College Farm,Navsari Agricultural University, Navsari during rabi seasonof 2011-12. The soil of south Gujarat is characterized asheavy black soil and placed under the great groupUstochrepts with Jalalpur series. The soil is medium to poordrainage and good water holding capacity and predominantwith clay mineral. The soil was clayey in texture and showedlow, medium and high rating for available nitrogen (219.52kg ha-1), phosphorus (30.91 kg ha-1) and potassium (387.60kg ha-1), respectively. The soil was found slightly alkaline(pH 7.8) with normal electric conductivity (0.36 dS m-1).The experiment consisting of ten treatments comprising all

292 AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE DIGEST - A Research Journal

possible combinations of five levels of nitrogen (chemicaland vermicompost fertilizer) with and without bio-fertilizer(Azotobacter and PSB) were tried in randomized blockdesign with three replications. The crop was fertilized with150 kg N and 50 kg P2O5 per hectare the recommended doseof fertilizers.RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONGrowth parameters : It was reported that application of100% RDF from chemical fertilizer with bio-fertilizer (Table1) to be recorded at various stages as well as days to 50 percent silking and day to first picking and plant height at harvestand it remained statistically at par with 100% RDN fromchemical fertilizer, 25% RDN from vermicompost and 75%RDN from chemical fertilizer with bio-fertilizer, 50% RDNfrom vermicompost and 50% RDN from chemical fertilizerwith bio-fertilizer and 25% RDN from vermicompost and75% RDN from chemical fertilizer. It shows that combinedeffect of inorganic nutrient application by vermicompost andbio-fertilizer plays very important role due to their synergeticeffect. The nitrogen from fertilizer helped in the promotionof growth during the early stages and while organic sourcesof nutrients improved crop growth during later stages. Thefavourable effect of vermicompost on growth might beattributed to presence of relatively readily available plantnutrients, growth enhancing substances and number ofbeneficial organisms like nitrogen fixing, phosphatesolubilising, cellulose decomposing and other beneficialmicrobes as well as antibiotics, vitamins and hormones etc.(Nehra et al., 2001). Maximum plant height of sweet cornwas recorded under recommended dose of fertilizers closelyfollowed by 75 per cent recommended dose of N + 25 percent N through vermicompost prepared from Parthaniumhysterophorus L./Cynodon dactylon Pers. (Khadtare et al.,2006a). Similar results were also reported by Dadarwal etal. (2009) evaluate the effect of integrated nutrientmanagement in baby corn. They reported that maximum plantheight and dry matter accumulation were in treatmentcomprising 75% NPK + 2.25 t ha-1 vermicompost along withbio-fertilizers over rest of the treatments.Yield parameters: None of the integrated nutrientmanagement treatments showed beneficial effect on cobsper plant, cob length, cob girth (Table 1), cob weight withand without husk (Table 1). Significantly the highest cobsper plant, cob length, cob girth, cob weight with and withouthusk were observed with application of 100% RDN fromchemical fertilizer with bio-fertilizer (T10). The results werein agreement with those reported by Thavaprakaash andVelayudham (2007) conducted a field experiments atCoimbatore during kharif (June to September) and summer(February to May) seasons to study the impact of INMpractices (150-60-40 kg N-P2O5-K2O ha-1, 50% NPK + FYM+ Azospirillum + Phosphobacteria, 50% NPK + poultrymanure + Azospirillum + Phosphobacteria, 50% NPK + goatmanure + Azospirillum + Phosphobacteria) on production

potential of baby corn based intercropping systems. Theexperimental results revealed that INM treatmentssignificantly increased nutrient uptake and baby corn yieldover inorganic fertilizers. Dadarwal et al. (2009) conductedan experiment during rainy (kharif) season at Udaipur toevaluate the effect of integrated nutrient management in babycorn. They reported that significantly highest dehusked cob(baby corn) and green fodder yield were obtained by applying75 % NPK + 2.25 t ha-1 vermicompost + bio-fertilizersfollowed by 62.5 % NPK + 1.875 t ha-1 vermicompost +bio-fertilizers and registered increase of 38.1 and 15.6, 28.2and 15.1 % over 50 % NPK + 1.50 t ha-1 vermicompost +bio-fertilizers and 62.5 % NPK + 1.875 t ha-1 vermicompost+ bio-fertilizers, respectively over the rest of treatments.Chemical fertilizer and integrated use of fertilizer did bringabout significant improvement in overall growth of the cropby providing needed nutrients from initial stage and increasein supply of N, P and K in more synchronize way at thetreatment receiving integrated supply of nutrient from organicmanure along with inorganic fertilizer and which expressedin terms of plant height, cobs per plant, cob girth, cob length,cob weight with and without husk by virtue of increasedphotosynthetic efficiency. Thus, greater availability ofphotosynthates, metabolites and nutrients to developreproductive structures seems to have resulted in increasedproductive plants, cob girth, cob length and cob weight withthese integrated nutrient management treatments.Effect on quality parameters : This could also be explainedon the basis of better availability of desired and requirednutrients in crop root zone and from its solubilization causedby the organic acid produced from the decaying organicmatter and also the increase uptake by baby corn roots andenhanced photosynthetic and metabolic activity resulting inbetter partitioning of photosynthates to sinks, which reflectedin quality enhancement in terms of vitamin-C, total sugarand protein content. From the present study, it could beresulted that different integrated nutrient managementtreatments did not exert any significant influence on crudeprotein content of baby corn. However, Numerically crudeprotein and significantly vitamin-C and total sugar wererecorded higher (Table 1) in treatment 100% RDN fromvermicompost While the lowest values of quality parameterswere observed under treatment 100% RDN from chemicalfertilizer with bio-fertilizer. This finding closely associatedwith that the Vermicompost recorded significantly higherprotein content (9.40 %) as compared to the control (8.58 %)(Ramesh et al., 2008). Similar results were also reported byMeena et al. (2007) and reported that an application of 1.5 tha-1 vermicompost resulted in significantly more proteincontent as compared with 0.5 and 1.0 t ha-1 vermicompostand control.Economics : The highest net realization of Rs. 220775/haand BCR of 12.60 (Table 2) accrued with application of100% RDN from chemical fertilizer with bio-fertilizer. This

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could be attributed to yield as well as green fodder yieldsrecorded with this treatment. Application of 100% RDN fromchemical fertilizer was recorded Rs. 215384/ha netrealization and 12.54 BCR value was next higher returningtreatment. Among integrated nutrient managementtreatments, 25% RDN from vermicompost and 75% RDNfrom chemical fertilizer with bio-fertilizer recorded Rs.201462/ha net realization and 8.75 BCR value. The reasonis self-explanatory as cost of cultivation was reported higherwith more quantity of vermicompost required to supplyrecommended quality of nutrients which increase the totalcost of baby corn production. While chemical fertilizer arecheaper and required less quantity to supply recommendeddose of nutrient, which effect on net realization and costbenefit ratio of the treatments under study. The presentfindings are in close agreement with the results obtained byDadarwal et al. (2009) They reported that application of

75% NPK along with 2.25 t ha-1 vermicompost + bio-fertilizers significantly increased net returns, B:C and uptakeand available N, P and K status of soil after harvest of babycorn. The application of RDF + Azotobacter + PSB gavesignificantly higher amount of uptake of N, P and Zn andbenefit: cost ratio as compared to control (Tetarwal et al.,2011)CONCLUSION

Thus, it can be concluded that the integration ofdifferent sources of nutrients either from chemical, organicand biofertilizers sources have been proven to be recordedsuccess in different part of the world than sole use of eitherchemical fertilizers or organic manures and this system isnot only improving the total crop productivity and foodquality but it also maintain and sustains soil health for futuregeneration as well as improving the economic stability ofthe farmers.

REFERENCESDadarwal, R. S.; Jain, N. K. and Singh, D. (2009). Integrated nutrient management in baby corn (Zea mays). Indian

journal of Agricultural Science, 79: 1023-1025FAI.(1999). Quarterly Bulletin of Statistics. Fertiliser Association of India, New Delhi, 2: 25-26Khadtare, S. V.; Patel, M. V.; Jadhav, J. D. and Mokashi, D. D. (2006a). Effect of vermicompost on yield and economics

of sweet corn. Journal of Soils and Crops, 16: 401-406.Meena, Omraj, Khafi, H. R., Shekh, M. A., Mehta A. C. and Davada, B. K. (2007). Effect of vermicompost and nitrogen on

content, uptake and yield of rabi maize. Crop Research, 33: 53-54.Nehra, A. S.; Hooda, I. S. and Singh, K. P. (2001). Effect of integrated nutrient management on growth and yield of wheat

(Triticum aestivum). Indian Journal of Agronomy, 46: 112-117.Paroda, S. (1994). Thailand mein baby corn ki safalta ki kahani. Kheti, 48: p.21.Ramesh, P.; Panwar, N. R.; Singh, A. B. and Ramana, S. (2008). Effect of organic manures on productivity, nutrient

uptake and soil fertility of maize (Zea mays) – linseed (Linum ustiatissimum) cropping system. Indian Journalof Agricultural Sciences, 78: 351-354.

Singhal, V. (2003). Indian Agriculture. Indian Economics Data Research Scientists Centre, New Delhi, p-164Tetarwal, J. P.; Baldev Ram. and Meena, D. S. (2011). Effect of integrated nutrient management on productivity,

profitability, nutrient uptake and soil fertility in rainfed maize (Zea mays). Indian Journal of Agronomy, 56: 373-376.Thavaprakaash, N. and Velayudham, K. (2007). Effect of crop geometry, intercropping system and INM practices on

cob yield and nutrient uptake of baby corn. Asian journal of Agricultural Research, 1: 10-16.