PERFORMANCE OF CHEWING TOBACCO POLY TRAY SEEDLINGS UNDER LEVELS OF NITROGEN AND DRIP IRRIGATION

Abstract

In Tamil Nadu, chewing tobacco is grown in an area of 10,000 to 15,000 ha. Generally farmers raise chewing tobacco seedlings by traditional methods where raised seed beds of 15 cm height are formed and seeds sown .The seedlings are pulled out at 45 days after sowing from the nursery and transplanted in the main field. In this method the establishment of seedlings will be slow and there will be seedling mortality rate and the gaps needed to be transplanted again. In recent years polytrays are used in most of the high value crops for raising seedlings. Seedlings raised in polytrays are cost effective, free from soil borne diseases, seedlings have uniform growth, cent per cent establishment, improves the resource use efficiency and increases the yield. In the last two decades the ground water recharge has become poor and irrigating agricultural crops by surface method has become difficult task and drip irrigation becoming popular over traditional irrigation methods as it gives more yield and income (Pawar et al., 2002). Further, the nutrient use efficiency in drip irrigation would be higher > 90% and relatively less leaching loss <10% resulting in higher productivity in agricultural crops (Sankaranarayanan,2010). Not much is known about the performance of poly tray seedlings with when transplanted and grown with fertigation. The present study aims at evaluating the suitability of drip irrigation coupled with nitrogen application for poly tray grown chewing tobacco seedlings.