~ 2132 ~ Journal of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry 2019; 8(4): 2132-2136 E-ISSN: 2278-4136 P-ISSN: 2349-8234 JPP 2019; 8(4): 2132-2136 Received: 10-05-2019 Accepted: 12-06-2019 Himanshu Kumar Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, India VC Dhyani Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, India Sumit Chaturvedi Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, India Reena Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, India Correspondence Himanshu Kumar Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, India Investigation of growth, yield and economics as affected by FYM and some foliar treatments under late sown wheat Himanshu Kumar, VC Dhyani, Sumit Chaturvedi and Reena Abstract An experiment laid out in split plot design replicated four times consisted of 12 treatments, having two FYM levels i.e., FYM (10 t/ha), no FYM and six foliar nutrition (0.1% calcium chloride, 0.5% zinc sulphate, 2.0% potassium chloride, 20g/ha ethylene synthesis inhibiter 1- methyl cyclo propane (1-MCP) and water spray at post anthesis stage) along with control as no foliar spray. Soil Appication of 10 t FYM /ha resulted numerically higher value of soil moisture content at different growth stages, emergence count, dry matter, LAI, yield attributes and ultimately grain yield. Physiological response of wheat in terms of chlorophyll content (SPAD value), photosystem II efficiency (Fv/Fm), canopy temperature, leaf temperature and transpiration rate were also numerically superior with FYM application over no FYM application. However values of aforesaid parameters except canopy temperature at 90 and 110 days after sowing were statistically at par. All foliar spray treatments were numerically superior over no foliar spray. However foliar spray of Zinc sulphate (0.5%) at post anthesis resulted highest yield attributes and grain yield and significantly superior to no spray. Among all treatments, FYM+ZnSO4 gave highest cost of cultivation, gross return and net return. There was not significant interaction between FYM and foliar treatments with respect to all the aforesaid parameters. Keywords: Growth, foliar nutrition, FYM, heat stress, late sown wheat, yield Introduction India produced 97.4 MT of wheat during 2016-17 with a productivity of 3.2t/ha (Directorate of economics and statistics, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare India, 2016-17). The country further requires 100 MT of wheat by the year 2030 (www.iiwbr.org) to fulfill the demands of the growing population which poses a major challenge in the background of prevailing changed climatic scenario. Although we are right on tract in terms of wheat production however, wheat productivity in India is less than its potential mainly due to several factors including socio economic and management factor as well as crops’ exposure to various biotic and abiotic stresses. Amongst the abiotic stresses, mainly strong light, elevated temperature, soil salinity, and drought may adversely affect plant growth and performance (Dalmia and Sawney, 2004) [8] . Higher temperature during the grain filling, also called as terminal heat stress is one of the major constraints in decreasing productivity of wheat in tropical countries including India (Rane and Nagarajan, 2004) [25] . Late sowing owing to compulsions of crop rotations is one of major reason of wheat’s exposure to terminal heat stress. To meet the food demand of ever growing population, there is need to reduce yield losses due to temperature stress. Apart from selection of heat tolerant genotypes, irrigation, inorganic fertilizer management, organic fertilizers like FYM, straw mulching and manipulation of sowing date can be employed to tackle terminal heat stress problem (Badaruddin et al. 1998) [4] . According to Wahid et al., (2007) plant water status is most important variable under changing ambient condition and plant is able to maintain stable tissue water status when water is ample. FYM, apart from source of micro and macro nutrient is also known to increase soil moisture storage (Wang et al. 2016; Eldardiry et al., 2013) [32, 10] . FYM had greatest yield response over approximately equivalent NPK as former provided growth factors in addition to nutrient content (Badaruddin et al. 1999) [3] . They further suggested that heat-tolerant genotype was generally more responsive to additional inputs. Work on foliar application calcium due to its protection of photosynthetic system (Zhao and Tan, 2005) [37, 38] , zinc for its role in imparting thermo-tolerance to photosynthetic apparatus (Graham and Donald, 2001) [13] and enhancing activity of superoxidase dismutase (Singh et al., 2011) has been published.