Effect of Growth Promoting Substances on Barseem (Trifolium alexandrinum) Seed Production in North-Western India

The study was conducted to assess the effect of growth promoting substances viz. salicylic acid (SA) and a mixture of potassium nitrate & muriate of potash (KNO₃ + MOP) on the seed yield of barseem at Seed Production Farm, KVK Faridkot, Romana Albel Singh and Ghuduwala in District Faridkot during rabi 2017-18 and 2018-19. The fertilizer was applied as 25-75-00 (NPK kg/ha) at the time of sowing to T₁ (Control), T₂ (KNO₃) & T₃ (SA) treatments while in case of T₄, MOP @ 30 kg/ha was applied along with N+P. Later on, two spays of KNO₃ @ 2% and SA @ 7.5 g in 100 litre of water were given at weekly interval after the initiation of flowering in T₂& T₃ plots. Application of KNO₃ and SA increased the number of shoots (7.3-17.4%), head density (7.6-15.9%), number of seeds per head (5.8-28%) and 1000-seed weight (7.9-27.7%) contributing to improvement in barseem seed yield (28.1-46%) over control whereas wheat equivalent yield (WEY) increased by 30-51.4 per cent over control. Basel Application of MOP also enhanced barseem seed production and increased wheat equivalent yield by 31.4 per cent over control.