Background Vegetable crops generate a large amount of crop residues after harvesting of economic part. These potentially nutritious residues are soft, succulent and easily decomposable and instead of disposing or damping, it can be used as source of organic residues for utilizing the embedded nutrients through compost production. In the present study, diverse vegetable wastes were recycled for vermicomposting and their effects were evaluated in field experiments in organic carrot production. Results The result showed that among different vegetable wastes, substrate combining mixture of non-legume and legume wastes at 2:1 emerged best considering the nutrient contents, C/N ratio, earthworm biomass and vermicompost recovery. Use of such vermicompost recorded highest root length (19.26 cm), root volume (73 cm 3), root weight (68.43 g) and root yield (16.07 Mg ha-1) of carrot. The quality of the root as judged by beta carotene and total soluble solids content was also found highest by the same vermicompost. Conclusions The findings established the potentiality of earthworm for quality vermicompost production from vegetable wastes, and through intended selection and judicious mixture of different vegetable wastes the cast quality can be improved. The study demonstrated that vermicompost produced from the substrate, combining mixture of non-legume and legume vegetable waste at 2:1 will provide the major nutrients in more balanced proportion compared to sole individual family waste vermicompost (vermicompost obtained from the waste of one single plant family). The findings can be promoted as a sound vegetable wastes recycling technology for organic carrot production to conserve natural resources and to minimize the deleterious impact of vegetable wastes on mother earth.

A field experiment was conducted during rabi season of 2013-14 and 2014-15 at Agriculture Farm of Palli Siksha Bhavana (Institute of Agriculture), Visva-Bharati, Sriniketan, West Bengal to find out the varietal performance of different promising entries of lentil on growth attributes and yield. Tendifferent varieties viz. Subrata, Asha, Ranjan, HUL 57, BM 6, BM 7, PL 406, KLS 218, Moitree and PL 6 was studied in a randomized block design (RBD), replicated thrice. Different growth and yield attributes were measured in the experiment to find out the suitable variety of lentil for the red and lateritic soil zone of West Bengal. The lentil variety PL-406 showed maximum growth potentiality among the other varieties just followed by another long duration lentil variety KLS-218. The lentil variety PL-406 showed maximum growth potentiality among the other varieties just followed by another long duration variety KLS 218. Highest grain yield was obtained from the variety Ranjan (789 kg ha ) respectively. From the result of the present experiment, it can be concluded that the variety PL 406 gave maximum vegetative growth, whereas the variety Ranjan produce maximum yield and found most potential variety among other lentil varieties under red and lateritic soil of West Bengal.

A field experiment was conducted during boro seasons of 2004-05 and 2005-06 to find out the effects of four different date of sowing and three non-chemical weed control methods and also their interaction effects on weed flora, yield and economics of drum seeded bororice at BCKV, Mohanpur, Nadia, West Bengal, India in a split plot design. The sowing of rice was done under puddled condition by using drum-seeder, which is an upgraded device for rice sowing. Sowing of rice on 15 th December produced minimum weed density and biomass at both of the observations, maximum % of effective tillersand B:C ratiocompared to other dates of sowing. Though the highest grain (5.19 t ha-1) and straw (5.65 t ha-1) yields obtained from 1 st December sowing, but itwas closely followed by 15 th December sowing. Amongst non-chemical weed control methods, hand-weeding gave lowest weed population and dry matter m-2 at 30 and 60 DAS, which were statistically comparable with mechanical-weeding with Japanese paddy weeder. On the other hand, mechanical-weeding produced highest grain and straw yield as well as B:C ratio. In case of interaction effects of the treatments, 15 th December sowing coupled with hand weeding gave minimum weed population m-2 followed by 1 st December sowing with hand weeding treatments at both 30 and 60 DAS. Sowing of drum-seeded rice on 1 st December along with weeding by using Japanese Paddy Weeder produced higher grain yields (6.07 t ha-1), net return (` 29265) and B:C ratio (1.41) ascompared to other treatment combinations under the experiment.

The research programme was carried out during early summer seasons of 2012 and 2013 at the experimental farm of Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Pundibari, Cooch Behar to study the direct and left over effect of organics on Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum Moench) – fodder Rice bean (Vigna umbellata) cropping system. The trial was carried out in Randomized block design with 14 treatments and replicated thrice. Results demonstrate that combined application of vermicompost, poultry manures, mustard cake and farmyard manure improved seed yield of buck wheat by 0.51 and 0.53 t ha-1 over 100 % RDF in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Among the sole application of organic manures, application of poultry manure at 5 t ha-1 proved its superiority in terms of stem and seed yield of buck wheat. Collective application of vermicompost at 2.5 t ha-1 + mustard Cake at 2.5 t ha-1 + poultry manure at 2.5 t ha-1 + Farmyard manure at 4 t ha-1 to the preceding buckwheat crop produced 18.67 and 17.20% more fodder yield of ricebean than 100 % chemically treated plot during both the years. Application of vermicompost at 2.5 t ha-1 + mustard Cake at 2.5 t ha-1 + poultry manure at 2.5 t ha-1 + Farmyard manure at 4 t ha-1 also leave highest amount of available N, P and K in the soil. Economic analysis revelaed that treatment producing highest yield of buck wheat and ricebean fetched lower B: C ratio (0.63 and 0.74 during 2012 and 2013, respectively) as compared to other treatemnts.

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