AGRONOMIC MEASURES FOR ENHANCING SEEDLING GROWTH & FIELD ESTABLISHMENT, CROP GROWTH, LEAF PRODUCTIVITY AND QUALITY OF FCV TOBACCO GROW IN KLS

Abstract

Flue cured Virginia (FCV) tobacco is an important commercial crop grown under rainfed farming on red sandy to sandy loam soils in Southern Transitional Zone of Karnataka FCV tobacco grown under this region experiences lower and unsustainable productivity due to poor seedling growth, field establishment, moisture stress at critical stages, poor nutrient uptake, high temperatures, soil compaction and exhaustion of soil nutrients due to continuous cropping over the years. Among the various cations, calcium is one of the principle organic constituent of the leaf next only to potassium. Achieving initial plant vigor helps in quick and healthy growth of plant that can effectively withstand drought and in this context application of starter dose of calcium nitrate which supplies readily available calcium and nitrate nitrogen to the plant has been a successful practice in many crops/vegetables to kick start early growth by stimulating root growth apart from foliar nutrition of N and K. With this objective the field experiments conducted on red sandy loam soil during 2017-2019 crop season reveled that agronomic interventions like application of starter dose Calcium nitrate fertilizer at planting time @ 25 kg /ha and foliar nutrition of N and K through Potassium nitrate N at 1% proved beneficial in increasing both the cured leaf productivity and bright grade production compared to control / normal practice in FCV tobacco growing areas of KLS.