Effect of Different Sowing Dates and Establishment Methods on Growth, Yield and Economics of Mustard (Brassica juncea L.)

Adaption of Furrow Irrigated Raised Bed System (FIRBS) and date of seeding are one of the important input for crop production particularly for rabi crop. Early planting through raised bed of mustard can compensate the late planting at least 10-15 days. Under this circumstance the use of raised bed planter along with timely sowing of mustard can produce higher yield. An adaptive research trail was conducted during the rabi season of 2020-21 and 2021-22 at farmer’s field in Jamui district to study the effect of different sowing dates and establishment methods of mustard crop. The trail was conducted in a factorial randomized block design with two method of sowing and three dates of sowing. The growth characters like plant height, leaf area index, no. of primary branches plant-1, no. of secondary branch plant-1, no. of silique plant-1, no. of seeds silique-1 were recorded. Test weight, grain and straw yield was influenced significantly due to different sowing dates and sowing methods. Higher plant height at harvest stage (160 cm), leaf area index at 60 DAS (3.3), no. of primary branches plant-1 (4.0), no. of secondary branch plant-1 (7.8), no. of silique plant-1 (292.4), no. of seeds silique-1 (9.7), test weight (3.8), grain (10.1 q ha-1) and straw yield (22.4 q ha-1) were recorded when the crop was sown on 05th November during both years. Whereas the mustard crop sown on FIRBS recorded highest growth attributes, yield components and seed yield (12.5 q ha-1) as compared to conventional method. Highest benefit cost ratio was calculated with (FIRBS) Furrow Irrigated Raised Bed system (2.0) as compared to all other treatments.