Productivity and profitability of pigeonpea under different sources of nutrients in rainfed condition of Central India

A field experiment was conducted during Kharif 2007–08 to 2009–10 to study the effect of fertilizer, farm yard manure and biofertilizer on growth and yield of pigeonpea. The result revealed that application of 18:46:20:20 kg N:P:K:S/ha recorded significantly higher grain yield over 9:23:10:10 kg N:P:K:S/ha during the individual years as well as on pooled basis. The addition of FYM 5 t/ha influenced the grain yield significantly over control except during 2008–09, however, net monetary returns (NMR) did not influenced significantly. Combined inoculation of Rhizobium + phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB) + plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) out yielded over the control, Rhizobium and PSB alone. The uptake of N, P, K and S significantly increased due to application of 18:46:20:20 kg N:P:K:S/ha compared with its reduce level i.e. 9:13:10:10 kg N:P:K:S/ha. The magnitude of effect of FYM was more than the P on K uptake. This might be due to contribution of K through FYM. Maximum values for nutrient uptake were obtained with Rhizobium + PSB + PGPR which were found significantly superior to other biofertilizer treatments except Rhizobium alone. Significantly higher net monetary return was obtained with seed inoculation with Rhizobium+PSB+PGPR and fertilized with 18:46:20:20 kg N:P:K:S/ha. On an average 2941 kg of biomass was incorporated over per hectare by which 55.54 kg N, 4.73 kg P, 28.95 kg K and 7.0 kg S/ha was added into the soil. Available N, P, K and S status of soil after harvest of pigeonpea were significantly influenced due to application of fertilizers, FYM and seed inoculation with biofertilizer over initial status. Interaction effect due to different levels of fertilizer, FYM and biofertilizer were found to be non significant.