Performance of Improved Wheat (Triticum aestivum) Varieties under Various Planting Techniques in North Eastern Plain Zone of India

The field experiment was conducted at IARI Regional Station, Pusa Bihar during 2013–14 and 2014–15 to evaluate the performance of improved wheat varieties under various planting techniques in NEPZ of India. The experiment was conducted in Split Plot Design allocated four crop establishment methods (FIRB, Bed Planting, SWI and Conventional) in main plot and four wheat varieties (HD 2733, HD 2967, DBW 39 and Raj 4229) in sub plots and replicated thrice. The results revealed that System of wheat intensification (SWI) method resulted in expressing significantly higher plant height (97.12 cm), effective tillers per square meter (145), ear length (10.53 cm), grains/spike (54.0) and 1000 grain weight (42.3 g). SWI recorded 41.4%, 20.8 and 10.3% higher grain yield than conventional, BP and FIRB method of planting, respectively. However, harvest index did not show any significant difference among all planting methods. Among wheat genotypes HD 2967 proved superiority in total effective tillers (128), plant height (94.9 cm), ear length (10.08 cm), grains/spike (50.7), 1000 grain weight (40.93 G), grain yield (5.25 t ha⁻¹) and HI (42.89%) than that of other varieties tested i.e. HD 2733, DBW 39 and Raj 4229. System of Wheat Intensification (SWI) and wheat variety HD 2967 could be recommended to obtain higher productivity of wheat in North Eastern Plain Zone (NEPZ) of India.