www.IndianJournals.com Members Copy, Not for Commercial Sale Downloaded From IP - 18.204.76.124 on dated 25-Jul-2024 871 Agric Res J 60 (6) : 871-874, December 2023 DOI: 10.5958/2395-146X.2023.00126.6 *Corresponding author: rajni-sharma@pau.edu Date of receipt: 12.12.2022, Date of acceptance: 17.11.2023 A griculture is both the producer (bio-energy) as well as consumer of energy. All agricultural operations require energy in one form or the other viz., man-power, fuel (diesel), irrigation, machinery, inorganic fertilizers, and agro-chemicals (Kumar et al., 2021). Energy consumption in agriculture has intensified in recent years due to increased production of food grains to feed the burgeoning population. Thus, intensive energy use through adoption of an intensive management package of practices and growing of high yield potential cultivars has threatened the sustainability of agriculture, environment, and public health. In order to meet the growing demand of the increasing population and to lower down the environmental hazards, declining energy use and enhancing the energy use efficiency are the only possible solutions that are vital for sustainable agriculture. Mungbean also known as greengram [Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek] is a versatile pulse crop. Being rich in quality proteins, minerals, vitamins etc., this crop is an inseparable ingredient in the diet of the Indian population. Its proteins are considered highly digestible and thus recommended for patients. It is also considered as low energy input crop because of being short duration, low input requirements and release of lower levels of green house gases as compared to cereals. Thus, its inclusion in cereal-based cropping systems has ample scope under sustainable agricultural production systems. The indeterminate growth habit of mungbean coincided with heavy rainfall during kharif season resulting in several physiological constraints viz., excessive vegetative growth, flower and fruit shedding which reduce its yield most of the time. Thus, under luxuriant growing conditions, maintaining a proper balance between the vegetative and reproductive components of the crop is sometimes difficult to accomplish and more photosynthates are shifted towards vegetative parts viz., stems and leaves at the expense of reproductive parts i.e., flowers and pods, which ultimately reflect in grain yield and harvest index. Mepiquat chloride (MC) is known to inhibit excessive vegetative growth, make plants more photosynthetically active and finally increase grain yield (Reddy et al., 1996) whereas, deficit Zn and B induces flower abscission and ovule infertility leading to low seed set and reduction in crop yield (Pathak et al., 2012). Therefore, the main aim ENERGY PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFICIENCY OF MUNGBEAN [Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek] IN RESPONSE TO FOLIAR APPLICATION OF GROWTH RETARDANTS AND MICRONUTRIENTS Chandrashekhar Hansda 1 , Rajni Sharma 1 *, Manpreet Jaidka 2 and J S Deol 1 1 Department of Agronomy, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-141 004, India 2 Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Moga-142 001, India ABSTRACT In agriculture, energy is an essential input required to enhance crop productivity as well as to ensure food and nutritional security. Any cropping system is considered to be ideal, if it provides more energy output per unit input of energy. Farming and cultivation of crop plants is in a constant process of conversion of energy through the biological process of plant photosynthesis which includes conversion of solar energy into food, feed, fibre and so on. Due to low input requirements of pulses than cereals, pulses are considered as low energy input crops but being indeterminate has certain physiological disorders. The present experiment emphasised on investigating the proper and efficient use of energy for the mungbean production. The energy flow of sixteen different treatments comprising of control (with and without water spray), mepiquat chloride (MC) 200 and 300 ppm applied at 30 DAS, single or double application of 0.5% ZnSO 4 applied at 35 DAS or 35 and 45 DAS, single or double application of 0.2% borax applied at 35 DAS or 35 and 45 DAS and combination of MC + ZnSO 4 and MC + borax, was carried out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Maximum output of energy, its use efficiency, and productivity were obtained with MC300 or 200 ppm + 0.5% ZnSO 4 at 35 and 45 DAS followed by ZnSO 4 @ 0.5% at 35 and 45 DAS. Thus, it can be concluded that under excessive vegetative growth conditions, MC 300 ppm + double application of 0.5% ZnSO 4 at 35 and 45 DAS can be recommended, otherwise, sole application of ZnSO 4 @ 0.5% applied twice at 35 and 45 DAS, also proved to be energy productive and efficient. Keywords: Efficiency, Energy use, Mepiquat chloride, Productivity, ZnSO 4