Foliar Application of Urea in Toria (Brassica campestris L.) under Rainfed Condition - A Participatory Assesement in Hill Zone of Assam

The objective of this study is to assess the effect of foliar application of urea on performances of Toria as compared to the soil application of recommended dose of fertilizers and farmer’s practice. The experiment was conducted through participatory on farm testing during October-January (rabi season) of 2015-16 and 2016-17 at 5 villages in Karbi Anglong district under hill zone of Assam in farmers’ field. Foliar fertilization is environment friendly, immediate and target-oriented than soil application as the nutrients are directly delivered to the plant tissues. The findings demonstrate that foliar application of N at 50% flowering and at 50% pod initiation stage with soil application of 50% recommended N and full dose of P & K was found significantly superior over recommended dose of fertilizer (RDF) and farmers practice in all the growth indices and yield attributing characters such as plant height, dry matter accumulation, number of branches, number of siliquae per plant, seeds per siliqua and 1000 grain weight and ultimately resulted to higher yields. The same produced seed yield of 10.88 q ha-1 which is 50.06% and 10.79 % greater than farmers practice and RDF, which had stover yields of 21.73 q ha-1 and harvest index of 33.36%. In comparison to farmers' practice and RDF, respectively, foliar feeding produced additional net returns of Rs. 3600.00 ha-1 and Rs. 2430.00 ha-1.