Effect of manganese nutrition on growth, yield, manganese uptake and quality of Sesame

A field experiment was conducted in RBD with sesame variety (CO 1) in red sandy loam soil (Typic Ustropept) during 2014 - 2015 at the farmer's holding in Erode district. The soil was deficient in available N, S and Mn and sufficient in all other major and micronutrients. The treatments included control (T, - recommended NPKS), graded levels of Mn (0,1.5,3.0 and 4.5 kg ha"¹) applied to soil as MnSO₄ (T₂ - T₄) and MnCl₂ (T₅ - T₇) and recommended dose of NPK + 5 kg ha"¹ MnSO₄ (T_g). In all treatments 100% recommended dose of NPK viz., 35: 23: 23 kg ha"¹ for irrigated sesame was uniformly applied. Sulphur (40 kg ha"¹) as gypsum was applied uniformly to all treatment plots, except in T_g. Mn applied at 3 kg ha"¹ as MnSO₄registered the highest dry matter production of 181, 1070, 3090 and 3832 kg ha"¹ at vegetative, flowering, milking and harvesting stages, respectively with a mean increase of 52% over the control. The Mn uptake showed increasing trend up to physiological maturity of the crop. Mn application at 3 kg ha"¹ as MnSO₄registered uptake with 14.9, 81.4,97.4 and 218.1 g ha"¹. Higher seed and stalk yields (740 kg ha"¹ and 2973 kg ha"¹), higher oil content and oil yield (49.17% and 369 kg ha"¹) were obtained on application of Mn at 3 kg ha"¹ as MnSO₄. Higher soil available Mn was recorded on applying 4.5 kg ha"¹ Mn as MnCl₂ after harvest with 2.24 mg kg"¹. The above results indicated that application of Mn at 3.0 kg ha"¹ in the form of MnSO₄i.e., 10 kg ha"¹ of MnSO₄ can be considered as optimum Mn dose for growth and development of sesame in a Mn and S deficient sandy loam soil