Residual effects of nitrogen sources, sulfur and boron levels on mungbean (Vigna radiata) in a sunflower (Helianthus annuus)-mungbean system

摘要

Field experiments were conducted during spring-rainy (kharif) seasons of 2005 and 2006 on a sunflower-mungbean cropping system at the research farm of the Division of Agronomy, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, India. The objectives of this study were to investigate the residual effect of nitrogen sources, sulfur and boron levels applied to sunflower on productivity, nutrient concentrations and their uptake by the succeeding mungbean crop in a sunflower-mungbean cropping system. The experiment with 19 treatments was laid out in factorial randomized block design for both sunflower and mungbean. The residual effects of nutrients applied to sunflower were significant on the succeeding mungbean crop in terms of biometric parameters, yield attributing characters, seed yield and soil nutrient status. The highest mungbean seed yield (961.2 kg ha−1) was produced with 50 kg ha−1 sulfur application to the preceding sunflower crop, which was significantly (p < 0.05) higher than with 0 and 25 kg sulfur ha−1. The concentrations and uptake of nitrogen, sulfur and boron were also greater in the succeeding mungbean crop due to the residual effects of nutrients applied to the preceding sunflower crop. The soil nutrient status before and after mungbean indicated that the available nitrogen and sulfur were higher due to application to the preceding crop, while available boron after mungbean was even higher than after sunflower due to its slow release and static nature in the soil.