Influence of seed treatment and foliar spraying of seaweed extracts on wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in Terai region of West Bengal

Abstract

The seaweed extracts (SWE) is one of the recently developed and more significant plant derived extract in terms of growth and yield stimulation as it contains many growth promoting hormones, macro and micro nutrients that provide balanced nutrition to plants. A field experiment was carried out during rabi season of 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 at Instructional Farm, Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, West Bengal to evaluate the impact of foliar application of SWE on growth, yield, nutrient uptake and production economics of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). The experiment was laid out in a factorial randomized block design having 12 treatment combination consisting of two factors. The factor 1 comprised of with and without seed treatment; while factor 2 included foliar application of SWE at different rates and at different growth stages. The wheat variety used in the experiment was DBW 187. The results revealed that seed treatment with SWE resulted in significantly higher growth and yield parameters, grain yields and nutrient uptake over untreated seeds. Foliar application of SWE had a significant impact and spraying of SWE @ 2 ml litre-1 at tillering and heading stage resulted in significantly higher spike no. m-2 (325), grain yield (5901 kg ha-1), straw yield (9146 kg ha-1) and nutrient uptake (110.5, 15.2 and 119.8 kg ha-1 N, P and K, respectively). The same treatment also achieved the highest net returns (67188 ₹ ha^(-1)) and B:C (2.50). It can be concluded that seed treatment with SWE @ 3 ml kg-1 of seed and foliar application @ 2 ml litre-1 twice at tillering and heading stage could increase the growth, yield, NPK uptake and profitability of wheat under terai region of West Bengal.