Yield limitation and widespread sulphur (S) deficiency in pearl-millet-nurturing dryland soils has emerged as a serious threat to crop productivity and quality. Among diverse pathways to tackle moisture and nutrient stress in rainfed ecologies, conservation agriculture (CA) and foliar nutrition have the greatest potential due to their economic and environmentally friendly nature. Therefore, to understand ammonium thiosulphate (ATS)-mediated foliar S nutrition effects on yield, protein content, mineral biofortification, and sulphur economy of rainfed pearl millet under diverse crop establishment systems, a field study was undertaken. The results highlighted that pearl millet grain and protein yield was significantly higher under no-tillage +3 t/ha crop residue mulching (NTCRM) as compared to no-tillage without mulch (NoTill) and conventional tillage (ConvTill), whereas the stover yield under NTCRM and ConvTill remained at par. Likewise, grain and stover yield in foliar S application using ATS 10 mL/L_twice was 19.5% and 13.2% greater over no S application. The sulphur management strategy of foliar-applied ATS 10 mL/L_twice resulted in significant improvement in grain protein content, protein yield, micronutrient fortification, and net returns (₹ 54.6 × 1000) over the control. Overall, ATS-mediated foliar S nutrition can be an alternate pathway to S management in pearl millet for yield enhancement, micronutrient biofortification and grain protein content increase under ConvTill, as well as under the new NTCRM systems.

A field experiment was conducted to study the short-term impact of sensor-based wastewater irrigation scheduling on chemical soil health in chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat.) at Water Technology Centre, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi during 2019–20. Experiment was conducted with following 6 treatments, viz. T1, Groundwater irrigation (GWI) at 25% Maximum Allowable Depletion (MAD), T2, GWI at 50% MAD, T3, GWI at 75% MAD, T4, Wastewater irrigation (WWI) at 25% MAD, T5, WWI at 50% MAD, T6, WWI at 75% MAD and was laid out in a randomized block design (RBD) in open field condition with 4 replications. Soil samples and quality of groundwater and wastewater were assessed during and after the experiment to quantify the chemical properties (pH, EC and OC), primary nutrients (NPK), micronutrients (Fe, Mn, Cu and Zn) and heavy metals (Ni, Pb, Cr and Cd). Results shows that pH and EC remains the same. Organic carbon, primary nutrient and micronutrients content significantly increased in wastewater irrigated soils and best result was observed in T5. Moreover, the content of heavy metals (Ni, Cr, Cd and Pb) in soils was significantly not changed with different wastewater irrigation treatments. Wastewater irrigation have beneficial impacts on soil chemical parameters in terms of higher amount of organic matter, primary and micronutrients in soil.

A field experiment was conducted to study the effect of integrated nutrient management on growth and yield of spring mungbean (Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek) cultivars in Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh during season of 2019 at Banda University of Agriculture and Technology, Banda (Uttar Pradesh). The experiment was laid out in asymmetrical factorial randomized block design with 6 treatment combinations of integrated nutrient management practices with 2 varieties. Results revealed that cultivar “Shikha” suits to be the better over “Samrat” in respect of growth, yield attributes, seed yield and economics. Additionally, INM practices had better effect on growth, yield attributes compared to sole application of inorganic fertilizers and vermicompost treatments. 100% RDF + 100% vermicompost had highest seed yield (771kg/ha), closely followed by 75% RDF + 50% vermicompost (741 kg/ha) compared to rest of treatments. Among the INM treatments, application of 50% RDF blended with 50% vermicompost recorded at par values of growth, yield attributes and seed yield over the application of 100% RDF + 100% vermicompost and 75% RDF + 50% vermicompost. On an average, INM treatments noted 69.89, 14.07 and 43.39% higher net returns as well as 68.92, 21.2 and 51.57% more benefit: cost ratio over the control, 100% RDF and 100% vermicompost, respectively. Therefore, application of 50% RDF + 50% vermicompost (1.25 t/ha) was optimum under the existing condition of Bundelkhand.

The study has been undertaken to evaluate the performance of locally available commercial cultivars of cabbage in open field during summer season of 2019 at Defence Research Laboratory Research and Development Centre Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh). The commercial cultivars of these vegetables were evaluated based on the growth parameters and their yield performance under open field with paired row system of planting. It was found that the cultivar Green Express performance was outstanding among test edcultivars and it superseded cv. Royal Ball BC-51 and cv. Blue Jayes in terms of growth parameters as well as marketable yield (2.62 kg/m2) and biological yield (3.47 kg/m2). The cv. Royal Ball BC-86 was also found next best performing cultivar after cv. Green Express as former was at par with growth and yield parameter and harvest maturity of later. The head of cv. Green express attended harvest maturity (149.25 days) approximately one week earlier as compared to cv. Blue Jayes (155.0 days). However, the productivity of cultivars Green Express and Royal Ball BC-86 was found within the range of national average, therefore, these two cultivars could be recommended for the commercial cultivation with paired row system of planting under open field cultivation during summer season in high altitude areas of Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh).