Effect of Organic and Liquid Manures on Productivity and Profitability of Blackgram

Background: Blackgram being important crop among pulse is gaining popularity and thus requiring suitable crop production practices especially under organic farming. In this context, this study was proposed with the objective to investigate the optimal nutrient management practices in organic blackgram by utilizing various organic nutrient sources. Methods: Field experiments were conducted at two different locations in spilt plot design. The treatments consisted of 4 levels of organic manure viz ., Farm Yard Manure (FYM) @ 12.5 t ha -1 , Vermicompost (VC) @ 2.5 t ha -1 , Enriched FYM (EFYM) @ 750 kg ha -1 and Enriched VC (EVC) @ 1 t ha -1 as main plot treatments and five levels of foliar spray of liquid manure viz ., two foliar sprays of Panchagavya @ 3% and Fermented egg extract (FEE), Fermented fish extract (FFE), Farmers effective microorganisms (FEM), Jeevamruth each @ 5%. Result: Results revealed that application of EFYM and VC, produced higher yield parameters and grain yield, respectively under main plot organic manure addition at site-I and II. Among the sub plots liquid manure treatments Panchagavya spray has produced higher grain yield along with the yield parameters at both the sites. Among the organic manures higher economic returns were obtained with the application of EFYM at both the sites while among the liquid manures better returns were obtained with the application of Panchagavya at site-I and Panchagavya or FEM spray at site-II.

To reduce the impact of adverse effect of inorganic fertilizer use on soil and environmental health, a shift to adopt sustainable agricultural practices is necessary, which also saves the farmers from the high cost of fertilizers consumption and input energy.Biofertilizers and organic fertilisers made from farm residues and waste are examples of such sustainable techniques (Khurana and Kumar, 2022).
Current land use does not exactly meet the food demand for the growing population under organic farming alone which, is also the main criticism facing by organic farming (Connor and Minguez, 2012).Therefore the major goal lying ahead is to increase yields under organic farming (Roos et al., 2018).Food availability can be increased under organic agriculture by integration of inputs rather than the individual approach as it makes strenuous to meet food demand due to lesser amount of nutrient present per unit of organic manures as compared to the inorganic fertilizers.The productivity of the crop enhanced when nutrient supply was continuous in form of foliar spray followed by manure incorporation (Thiagarajan and Somasundaram, 2019).In blackgram, studies under sole organic conditions are scanty.Hence this study was proposed to find the optimal nutrient management practices in organic blackgram by utilizing various organic nutrient sources.experiment was conducted in spilt plot design with three replications.The treatments comprised of four levels of organic manure viz., Farm Yard Manure (FYM) @ 12.5 t ha -1 , Vermicompost (VC) @ 2.5 t ha -1 , Enriched FYM (EFYM) @ 750 kg ha -1 and Enriched VC (EVC) @ 1 t ha -1 as main plot treatment and five levels of liquid manure viz., two foliar sprays of Panchagavya @ 3% and Fermented egg extract (FEE), Fermented fish extract (FFE), Farmers effective microbes (FEM), Jeevamruth each @ 5%.Foliar sprays of liquid manure were done at first flowering (At least 30% flower initiation in plots) and 10 days after 1 st spray.
Blackgram was sown at a spacing of 30 cm  10 cm.
In Experimental site-I the soil was low in nitrogen, high in phosphorous and potassium and low in organic carbon content.The pH was 7.04 and 6.74 during trial-I and II, respectively.At site-II the soil was low in nitrogen, medium in phosphorous, high in potassium and organic carbon content.The pH was 8.58 and 8.40 during trial-I and II, respectively.Yield attributing characters were recorded as per the standard methods at physiological maturity stage.The seed and stover yield was recorded from net plot area of each treatment.The data obtained from various characters under study were analyzed by the method of analysis of variance as described by Panse and Sukhatame, 1967.The Effect of Organic and Liquid Manures on Productivity and Profitability of Blackgram economics was calculated treatments wise where net returns were calculated as a difference between the cost of cultivation from the gross income.The benefit cost ratio (BCR) was calculated by the formula:

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Yield attributing characters and yield Significant results were observed for grain yield, stover yield, number of clusters plant -1 and pods plant -1 , pod length and number of seeds pod -1 among the various parameters with the application of organic and liquid manures (Table 1 and 2).At Site-I, among manures the application of EFYM (11.8 and 17.0) showed significantly increased clusters plant -1 whereas, in site-II VC (10.6 and 15.8) gave higher clusters number during trial-I and II, respectively.Spraying of Panchagavya recorded significantly higher number of clusters plant -1 for site-I (11.4 and 16.4) and at site-II (10.4 and 15.4) during trial-I and II, respectively.The number of pods plant -1 at site-I showed significantly higher number along with the application of EFYM (18.0 and 24.4) and at site-II with the application of VC (15.6 and 21.6) during trial-I and II, respectively.Panchagavya spray at site-I (17.5 and BCR = Gross return (` ha -1 ) Cost of cultivation (` ha -1 ) The length of the pod at site-I was higher with the application of EFYM (4.66 and 4.73 cm) and at site-II the application of VC (4.35 and 4.58 cm) recorded higher length during trial-I and II respectively.Panchagavya spray showed higher pod length in both site-I (4.65 and 4.76 cm) and site-II (4.32 and 4.56 cm) during trial-I and II, respectively.Number of seeds pod -1 at site-I was higher the application of EFYM (6.8 and 6.9) and at site-II application of VC (6.5 and 6.7) during trial-I and II respectively.Panchagavya spray showed higher seeds number in both site-I (6.8 and 6.8) and site-II (6.3 and 6.5) during trial-I and trial-II, respectively.Application of EFYM (2485 and 2569 kg ha -1 ) at site-I and VC (2221 and 2460 kg ha -1 ) at site-II recorded greater stover yield during trial-I and II, respectively.Among the foliar sprays, Panchagavya recorded higher stover yields for site-I ( 2422and 2513 kg ha -1 ) and site-II (2199 and 2394 ha -1 ) during trial-I and II, respectively.The interaction effect for the higher yield attributes showed results of similar trend as that of the main and sub plot.The manures application attributed for better vegetative growth and development in blackgram, as a result of balanced nutrition and better soil fertility status which together with the influence of foliar sprays might have created a better environment for the development of yield parameters in blackgram.Similar results have been reported by Meena et al. (2021) and Sangeetha et al. (2013).The enhanced yield parameters in the study might be attributed to spraying Panchagavya twice, which has various nutrients in balanced amount, along with the beneficial microorganisms, growth promoters and ability to boost flowering.These results are in line with Kumawat et al. (2009) andLeo Daniel Amalraj et al. (2013).The foliar spray of Panchagavya has improved the growth, physiological, yield attributes and yield especially when the foliar spray was given during the flowering stage (Jha et al., 2015;Sutar et al., 2019 andAjaykumar et al., 2022).
Application of EFYM (760 and 799 kg ha -1 ) and Panchagavya spray (744 and 778 kg ha -1 ) showed significantly higher grain yield during both trial-I and II respectively in Experimental site-I.The Experimental site-II recorded significant grain yield with the application of vermicompost (715 and 760 kg ha -1 ) and Panchagavya spray (699 and 742 kg ha -1 ) during both the trial-I and II.Significantly higher yield among the main plots was recorded by EFYM followed by VC and EVC in site-I where FYM recorded the lowest yield.Application of VC was followed by EFYM and EVC showed higher yield where FYM recorded lowest in site-II.Panchagavya was followed by FFE in site-I and FEM in site-II respectively, showed superior yield where, FEE and Jeevamruth recorded the lowest yield being statistically at par for both the sites.
W ith the application of enriched FYM, the nutrient availability might have improved as a result of beneficial effects of biofertlizers and rock phosphate in site-I.Improvement in the soil properties, plant growth and root parameters might have led to yield enhancement which might be a result of better soil biological condition brought on by vermicompost application in site-II.These results were in accordance with Suresh, 2005 andParthasarathi et al. (2008).The yield increase with Panchagavya foliar spray might have been due to the contribution from enhanced absorption of the nutrients and influence of plant growth regulators.This result is in line with Choudhary et al. (2017).In the study, the initial supply of nutrition by manures incorporation followed by foliar spray of the liquid manures twice ensured the balanced nutrient supply throughout the growth period.
The test weight and harvest index showed non significant difference in both the locations during trial-I and II (Table 3).

Economics
The economics was given as net returns (` ha -1 ) and Benefit cost ratio.The economics showed higher net returns with the application of EFYM at site-I (31377and 37063 ` ha -1 ) and at site-II (24124 and 30768 ` ha -1 ) during trial-I and II, respectively.Among the foliar sprays the net returns were greater with the Panchagavya spray at site-I (16971 and 21985 ` ha -1 ) and at site-II (17743 and 23742 ` ha -1 ) during trial-I and II, respectively.The BCR was maximum with the incorporation of EFYM at site-I (1.5 and 1.6) and at site-II (1.5 and 1.6) during trial-I and II, respectively.Higher BCR was obtained by spraying Panchagavya at site-I (1.3 and 1.4) and at site-II (1.3 and 1.4), during trial-I and II, respectively.Reduced quantity of manure applied along with higher yields might have led to the increased returns.These results are in line with Masu et al. (2019) and Somasundaram et al. (2020) (Table 4).

CONCLUSION
On the basis of experimental results, it was concluded that economically beneficial returns for organic blackgram w ere ob tained at E xperimental site-I, w ith th e incorporation of Enriched FYM @ 750 kg ha -1 followed by P an ch ag avya @ 3% as foliar spray twic e an d fo r Experimental site-II it was with the incorporation of Enriched FYM @ 750 kg ha -1 followed by Panchagavya @ 3% or Farmers Effective Microorganisms (FEM) @ 5% twice as foliar spray.

Table 1 :
Effect of organic and liquid manure on yield attributes and yield of organic blackgram at Experimental site-I.

Table 2 :
Effect of organic and liquid manure on yield attributes and yield of organic blackgram at Experimental site-II.

Table 4 :
Effect of organic and liquid manure on net returns and benefit cost ratio of organic blackgram.

Table 3 :
Effect of organic and liquid manure on test weight and harvest index of organic blackgram.