INFLUENCE OF FERTILIZER AND WEED MANAGEMENT ON YIELD AND NUTRIENT UPTAKE IN ONION (Allium cepa L.)

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted to find out appropriate nutrient and weed management practices for yield maximization and nutrient uptake of onion during rabi 2018-19 at the experimental plot of Regional Research and Technology Transfer Station, Keonjhar of Odisha. The experiment was laid out in Split plot technique with fifteen treatments viz., Main plot belongs to Nutrient management (N) with treatments i.e. N₁- Soil test based fertilizer recommendation (STBFR), N₂ - 50% STBFR + FYM (Based on N requirement), N₃-STBFR + Sulphur), while Subplots belongs to weed management (W) with treatments viz., W₁- Pendimethalin (PE) @ 0.8 Lha^-1, W₂- Oxyflurofen (PE) @ 0.2 Lha^-1, W₃- Pendimethalin (PE) @ 0.8 Lha^-1+ one hand weeding at 25 days after transplanting(DAT), W₄-Oxyflurofen (PE) @ 0.2 Lha^-1+ one hand weeding at 25 days after transplanting(DAT), W₅- one hand weeding at 25 days after transplanting (DAT). The highest onion bulb yield of 16.72 t ha^-1 was obtained under the treatment applied with Pendimethalin (PE) @ 0.8 Lha^-1 along with one hand weeding at 25 DAT, followed by Oxyfluorfen 0.2Lha^-1pre-emergence + 1 hand weeding at 25 DAT (15. 88 t ha^-1). The treatment combination of N₂W₃ (96.83, 16.80, 57.73 kg ha^-1) was recorded the highest N, P, and K uptake by crops respectively while N₃W₃ (51.39 kg ha^-1) was recorded as the highest S uptake by a crop over the rest of the treatments.