PJB-2021-482
DUAL PURPOSE USE OF SUMMER LEGUMES FOR FODDER AND GRAIN PRODUCTION
SAIFULLAH
Abstract
DUAL PURPOSE USE OF SUMMER LEGUMES FOR FODDER AND GRAIN PRODUCTION Saifullah and Muhammad Arif Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Crop Production Sciences The University of Agriculture, Peshawar-Pakistan June, 2021 ABSTRACT Legumes are considered as soil building crops as they enhance soil fertility and increase crop production of subsequent crops due to their nitrogen fixing nature. A field experiment was conducted at Agronomy Research Farm, The University of Agriculture, Peshawar during summer 2019 to study the prospects of summer legumes as dual purpose crop (fodder and seeds) under grazing and cutting treatments. The experiment consisted of four crops i.e. mungbean, sesbania, cowpea and pigeonpea with three cutting treatments i.e. grazing, cutting and no-cut. The results showed that cutting and grazing treatments significantly reduced branches plant-1 (25 and 18%), pods plant-1 (51 and 45%), seeds pod-1 (23 and 16%), biological yield (47 and 17%), seed yield (26 and 18%), weed density (36 and 18%), fresh weight of weeds (46 and 32%) and dry weight of weeds (79 and 50%), respectively. The results also showed that cutting and grazing treatments reduced biological yield by 29 and 21% in mungbean, 44 and 39% in Sesbania, 22 and 4% in cowpea and 68 and 60% in Pigeonpea, respectively. Similarly cutting and grazing treatments reduced seed yield by 33 and 9% in mungbean, 21 and 1.5% in Sesbania, 19 and 4% in cowpea and 24 and 17% in Pigeonpea, respectively. Likewise, different legume crops also differed significantly for all parameters except for dry weight of weeds. Among the studied crops, sesbania produced (65%) maximum nodules plant-1, seeds pod-1 (88%) and biological yield (41%) and cowpea produced (53%) higher branches plant-1, and thousand seed weight (85%), Pigeonpea produced (23%) higher weeds, fresh weight of weeds (54%), pods plant-1 (95%) and seed yield (65%) while mungbean produced (64%) seed yield and harvest index (65%). Similarly, different legume crops also improved soil electrical conductivity, soil total nitrogen and organic carbon but reduced pH of the soil. Among the studied crops Sesbania resulted in (66%) maximum soil total N and organic carbon (31%) and cowpea increased soil pH to 7.75 as compared to soil pH in Sesbania plots (7.25), Pigeonpea had the highest electrical conductivity of 0.51 dS m-1 as compared to the lowest electrical conductivity in mungbean plots (0.26 dS m-1) It is concluded that Sesbania with grazing or cutting treatments is recommended for higher fodder, seed yield, net income value and improving soil quality.
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