Growth, yield attributes and quality of summer greengram 47 Growth, yield attributes and quality of summer greengram (Vigna radiata L.) as influenced by nitrogen and irrigation levels Manoj, Rajiv K. Singh*, A.N. Singh, Hardev Ram and S. Rajendra Prasad Directorate of Seed Research, Mau-275 101 (U.P.) *e-mail : rajiv1571975@rediffmail.com Received : July 2013; Revised accepted : October 2013 ABSTRACT A field experiment was conducted at the experimental field of Directorate of Seed Research, Mau, U. P. during summer season, 2011 to evaluate the effect of irrigation and nitrogen applications on growth, yield and quality of green gram (Vigna radiate L.) cv. HUM 12. Result showed that 20 kg N ha -1 as basal and 20 kg N ha -1 as split + one irrigation at flower initiation gave maximum plant m -2 , plant height, number of branches plant -1 and number of trifoliate leaves plant -1 followed by 15 kg N ha -1 as basal and 15 kg N ha -1 as split + one irrigation at flower initiation and 10 kg N ha -1 as basal and 10 kg N ha -1 as split + one irrigation at flower initiation and lowest in control. The seed yield of green gram significantly higher over control due to increasing the number of pods plant -1 (43.4), pod length (10.4 cm), number of seeds pod -1 (10.5), test weight (46.3 g), yield per plant (5.60 g) and seed yield (16.6 q h -1 ). The highest germination percentage, vigour index, nitrate and nitrite reductase activity were observed with 20 kg N ha -1 as basal and 20 kg N ha -1 as split + one irrigation at flower initiation (100.0). The maximum seedling dry weight was recorded with application of 10 kg N ha 1 as basal and 10 kg N ha -1 as split + one irrigation at first flower initiation stage (156.0) which was on par with 40 kg N ha -1 as basal. Key words: Summer greengram, nitrogen, irrigation, growth, yield, quality. Ann. Agric. Res. New Series Vol. 35 (1) : 47-53 (2014) In India, presently farmers grow more than a dozen of pulses. Among them chickpea, pigeon pea, urdbean, greengram, lentil, fieldpea, lathyrus are important. Among the kharif / summer pulse crops, green gram ( Vigna radiata L.) has special importance in intensive crop production of the country for its short growing period (Ahmed et al., 1978). India is the largest producer and consumer of pulses in the world contributing around 25-28% of the total global production. The country grows a variety of pulse crops, such as chickpea, pigeonpea, greengram, blackgram, dry peas and lentils under a wide range of agro-climate conditions. The total pulse production is 17.2 million tonnes from 24.8 million ha area (Anonymous, 2012) which is all times high and is the only exception year majority of which falling under rainfed, resource poor and harsh environments frequently prone to drought and other abiotic stress condition. Pulses are least preferred by farmers because of high risk and less remunerative than cereals; consequently, the production of the pulses is significantly low to meet the demand of pulses. Majority of Indian population is vegetarian, pulses are cheap and best source of protein for Indian diet. It contains 20-25 per cent protein, which is more than two times of cereals. India importing about 3 million tonnes and the future demand of pulses by 2015 will be 27.0 million tonnes (Singh, 2011). The green plants can also be used as animal feed and its residues have the capacity to improve the physical, chemical and biological properties of soil thus increase the productivity of land. It can also fix atmospheric nitrogen through the symbiotic relationship between the host