Influence of pre-flowering pinching and Maleic hydrazide spray on plant growth, seed yield and quality attributes in fenugreek

Apical pinching and application of growth retardant Maleic hydrzide (MH) to enhance seed yield in fenugreek during rabi, 2006 revealed that among the pinching treatments, non-pinched plants (T₁) recorded significantly higher plant height at 60 DAS (41.24cm) and at harvest (59.69cm). Seed yield attributes like number of pods per plant, pod weight per plant and pod weight per hectare were significantly higher (46.65, 28.93g and 3214kg, respectively) in T₃ (MH @ 500ppm). However, seed yield per plant and seed yield per hectare was significantly higher in T₂ over T₁ and T₃ (16.36, 20.07g and 2230kg, respectively). Seed quality attributes like germination (95.40%), seedling vigour index-I (2271), seedling vigour index-II (1584) and field emergence (87.20%) were superior in seeds obtained from pinched plants with lower electrical conductivity (126 dSm⁻¹). Therefore, apical pinching could be advocated to the fenugreek in order to obtain higher seed yield with better quality.