Agrometeorological indices and phenology of urd bean genotypes as influenced by sowing dates

Abstract

Urd bean [Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper] is an important kharif pulse crop in India. It is highly sensitive to climatic fluctuations and yield is usually low due to variation in growing degree days and heat unit requirement which is often used for characterizing thermal responses in crops. Application of agro meteorological indices provides a scientific basis for determining the effect of temperature, photoperiod on phenological behavior of urd bean crop. keeping the fact in mind a field experiment was carried out during kharif season 2019-20 at Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur. The experiment was conducted in augmented design with four date of sowing (20th June, 26th July, 24 August and 26thSeptember denoted as D1, D2, D3 and D4 respectively) and three urd bean genotypes (V1- PU-19, V2-IPU 99-179 and V3 -PGRU 95016). Agrometetereological parameters including Growing degree days (GDD), Helio-thermal units (HTU) and Photo-thermal unit (PTU) (0C day hrs) were computed. Results revealed that highest GDD, HTU and PTU was observed with 20 th June of sowing and produced highest biomass and grain yield irrespective of genotypes over other dates of sowing. Amongst genotype, V2 -IPU 99-179 showed highest GDD, HTU and PTU irrespective of sowing dates.