Effect of Foliar Sprays on Rain Water Use Efficiency, Yield and Economics of Finger millet under Rainfed Situation

A field experiment was conducted during kharif 2015–16 at the research farm of All India Co-ordinated Research Project for Dryland Agriculture, GKVK, UAS, Bengaluru to study the effect of foliar application of different tolerance inducing nutrients on yield and rain water use efficiency of finger millet under rainfed situation. The experiment was conducted with 7 treatments viz., T₁: Foliar spray of water (Control), T₂: Foliar spray of Sodium selenite @ 10 g ha⁻¹, T₃: Foliar spray of Sodium selenite @ 20 g ha⁻¹, T₄: Foliar spray of 1% KNO₃, T₅: Foliar spray of 2% KNO₃, T₆: Foliar spray of thiourea (250 g ha⁻¹), T₇: Foliar spray of 1% KCl in Randomised Block Design with three replications. The results revealed that different foliar sprays influenced the growth and yield of finger millet. Application of 2% KNO₃ at panicle initiation stage and second spray 8 days after first spray resulted in higher grain yield (2637 kg ha⁻¹), straw yield (5139 kg ha⁻¹), rain water use efficiency (5.08 kg ha-mm⁻¹), net return ( 35493 ha⁻¹) and B:C ratio (2.35).