Vol. 1, Issue 2, Part A (2019)

An agronomic investigation “Effect of tillage and land configuration practices on growth and yield of rainfed soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merrill.)” was carried out at Experimental Farm, Department of Agronomy, Vasantrao Naik Marathwada Krishi Vidyapeeth, Parbhani during Kharif 2016. The experiment was conducted under dryland condition which consisted of three treatments of tillage practices as main plots and four treatments of land configurations as sub plots constituting twelve treatment combinations which were replicated thrice in split plot design. Three tillage practices i.e. T1 (conventional tillage), T₂ (rotary tillage) and T₃ (sub soiling tillage) were tested with four land configurations i.e. L₁ (broad bed furrow), L₂ (flatbed), L₃ (ridges & furrow) and L₄ (opening of furrow) in the investigation. In this study, the moisture storage was induced by tillage practices using sub soiling tillage. Results of the study revealed that, sloughing + cultivator +harrowing + subsoil recorded highest moisture storage of soil. From the results of the study it can be revealed that, the moisture content at various growth stages were recorded viz. at sowing, at 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90 and at harvest. At sowing there was almost uniform moisture content in all the treatments. At 15 DAS measured moisture content was higher in sub soiling tillage practice and it 37.02% for 30-45 cm depth, 36.02% for 15-30 cm depth and 34.39% for 0-15 cm depth which was found to be higher than rest of the tillage practices. At 90 DAS measured moisture content was higher in sub soiling tillage practice and it 38.00% for 30-45 cm depth, 37.85% for 15-30 cm depth and 36.00% for 0-15cm depth which was found to be higher than rest of the tillage practices i.e. rotary tillage and conventional tillage. At harvest measured moisture content was higher in sub soiling tillage practice and it 27.37% for 30-45cm depth, 26.08% for 15-30cm depth and 25.33% for 0-15cm depth which was found to be higher than rest of the tillage practices. Among land configurations, at sowing there was almost uniform moisture content in all the treatments. At 15 DAS measured moisture content was higher in broad bed furrow and it 32.10% for 30-45cm depth, 31.25% for 15-30cm depth and 30.08% for 0-15cm depth which was found to be higher than rest of the land configuration. At 90 DAS measured moisture content was higher in bed furrow and it 36.85% for 30-45cm depth, 35.88% for 15-30cm depth and 35.20% for 0-15cm depth which was found to be higher than rest of the land configuration i.e. ridges and furrow, flat bed and opening of furrow. At harvest moisture content was higher in broad bed furrow and it 28.61% for 30-45 cm depth, 27.97% for 15-30cm depth and 26.40% for 0-15cm depth which was found to be higher than rest of the land configuration i.e. ridges and furrow, flat bed and opening of furrow.