An analytical study was carried over to identify the efficient cropping zone for cultivation of major pulses like Bengalgram, Pigeon pea, Greengram, Blackgram and Horsegram in Tamil Nadu. The data on area, production and productivity of the crops for the period from 1985-86 to 2015-16 (excluding 2014-15) were collected and analysed for their Relative Yield Index (RYI), Relative Spread Index (RSI).Based on the pooled result of the indices for thirty years the efficient cropping zones for the crops were identified. Cuddalore district for Blackgram, Salem, Virudhunagar and Tirunelveli districts for Greengram, Salem, Dharmapuri and Theni districts for Redgram, Coimbatore district for Bengalgram, Salem, Dharmapuri and Dindigul districts for Horsegram were identified as the most efficient cropping zones for the respective pulse crops.

Field experiments were conducted at the Agricultural College and Research Institute (Killikulam), Tamil Nadu Agricultural University from September 1992 to June 1995 to optimize the herbicide dose and application techniques for cotton-based intercropping systems.283

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Nipping is an important practice that removes the apical dominance and promotes the lateral branches which in turn improves the yield of crops. It plays a vital role for better maintenance of source and sink relationship and for ameliorating the productivity. Nipping can be done in two ways either by clipping manually or by spraying growth retardants such as mepiquat chloride, chlormequat chloride and maleic hydrazide. In this review, the influence of nipping on the growth and yield of various crops has been discussed.

Afield experiment was conducted on sandy clay loamy soil during the rabiand summer season of 2011-2012 at Agricultural College and Research Institute, Madurai, Tamil Nadu to evaluate the effective weed management practices in blackgram. The experiment comprising of eleven weed management treatments were conducted in a randomized block design and replicated thrice. The treatments involving pre-emergence herbicide viz., pendimethalin and postemergence herbicide viz., imazethapyr, quizalofop-ethyl and in combination with hand weeding once. In addition, hand weeding twice at 15 and 30 DAS were tested with unweeded check. The results revealed that higher seed (1431 kg/ha in rabi and 1493 kg/ha in summer) yield and higher weed control efficiency were recorded under application of pendimethalin (0.75 kg/ha) as pre emergence at 3 DAS followed by (fb) mixture of imazethapyr (50 g/ha) + quizalofopethyl (50 g/ha) as post emergence at 20 days after sowing (DAS) and which was comparable with pre emergence application of pendimethalin fb half the dose mixture of above mentioned post emergence herbicides. The control treatment, more weed growth observed throughout the crop growing period caused 62 and 58 per cent reduction in seed yield during both rabiand summer seasons respectively. Based on the results, it can be concluded that application pendimethalin followed by imazethapyr + quizalofop-ethyl enhanced the weed control efficiency and also an effective weed management practice with respect to yield and cost for the blackgram.