Pantnagar Journal of Research

Abstract

Among small millets, barnyard millet has emerged as very important feed as well as fodder crop. The crop is most likely affected by the sheath blight disease incited by Rhizoctonia solani in hilly areas of Uttarakhand. Keeping this in view, a field experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of seed treatment, seed priming and soil application of value added FYM with bioinoculants on growth parameters, yield, yield contributing traits, sheath blight disease suppression and economics of barnyard millet. With respect to plant growth parameters, T11 (FYM pre-colonized with Trichoderma asperellum + Pseudomonas fluorescens + Bacillus subtilis) was found best for the plant height, number of tillers per plant, number of productive tillers per plant and ear length with 148.45 cm, 5.20, 4.06 and 18.62 cm, respectively. The treatment T11 also performed best for yield (22.67 q/ha) and disease suppression (100.00 per cent efficacy of disease control) followed by T8 (FYM pre-colonized with Trichoderma asperellum) with yield of 21.88 q/ha and disease suppression of 96.00 per cent over control. The highest cost-benefit ratio was recorded in treatment T11 with 1: 2.47 followed by T8 with 1: 2.38. In the present study, the soil application of FYM pre-colonized with Trichoderma asperellum + Pseudomonas fluorescens + Bacillus subtilis (@ 5 kg pre-colonized FYM/plot) was found to be most effective and promising for enhancing morpho-physiological growth, yield, economics and at the same time provided resistance against sheath blight disease in barnyard millet incited by Rhizoctonia solani. The present research, thus, offers a novel approach and merits further attention and may also pave the way for the use of bioagents application (in combination) through value added FYM for improving growth, yield and enhanced disease tolerance in barnyard millet.