ABSTRACT

A field experiment was conducted to study the influence of sowing windows for
soybean varieties in northern dry zone of Karnataka during the Kharif season, 2023-24
at the RARS, Vijayapur. The experiment consisted of four dates of sowing, viz., second
week of June, third week of June, fourth week of June and first week of July and three
varieties, viz. JS-335, DSb-21 and DSb-34. Sowing at second week of June recorded
significantly highest plant height at 30, 60 DAS and at harvest (18.16, 45 and 55.87 cm,
respectively), number of branches per plant at 30, 60 DAS and at harvest (3.52, 5.75
and 7.32, respectively), SPAD Value (43.09), number of pods per plant (74.62), number
of seeds per pod (3.45) and seed yield (23.53 q/ha). Among the different varieties, DSb-
21 recorded significantly highest plant height, number of branches per plant, SPAD
Value (42.83), number of pods per plant (73.90) and seed yield (21.96 q/ha).
Further, the laboratory experiments were conducted in Department of Seed
Science and Technology, at college of agriculture Vijayapur from November to June
2024 to ascertain the “Impact of sowing windows on seed quality during storage” seeds
harvested from the sowing of second week of June exhibited superior storability in
terms of maintaining key seed quality parameters. Among all the varieties, DSb-21
showed the best performance across various seed quality attributes such as germination
percentage (94.17 %), shoot and root length (15.37 cm and 16.85 cm, respectively),
seedling vigour index I and II (3041 and 43440, respectively), seedling dry weight
(461.02 mg), protein and oil content (39.96 % and 21.04 %, respectively). Thus, seeds
harvested from the sowing of second week of June for the variety DSb-21 retained high
quality throughout the storage period.