Soil water characteristic curve of a compacted A-7-5 tropical red earth soil

Soil water characteristic curve (SWCC) is a very important property of unsaturated soil and by extension tropical red earth soils. This is because several other important soils’ properties can be related to it. The Filter paper method was employed in the determination of the A-7-5(5) tropical red earth WCC. The gravimetric water content was utilized in the computation of the SWCC. Four models, Fredlund and Xing (1994), FX; Van Genuchten (1980), VG; Brooks and Corey (1964), BC; and Kosugi (1996), K were used to estimate the SWCCs of the soil and the minimum SSEnorm (MSSE), Average Relative Error (ARE), and R2 values were used to determine the most suitable model for predicting the SWCC. Results show that all four models can be used to predict A-7-5(5) WCC as they all had R2 value greater than 89% although BC and K models perform best with coefficient of determination of over 97%. MSSE and ARE% were also significantly low for BC and K models.

Bud Chip Method: A Potential In vitro Technology for Bajra-napier Hybrid (Pennisetum glaucum L. X P. purpureum Schum.) for Sett Multiplication

Background: Forages of high quality are the most valuable commodity of any livestock activity and they serve as the basis for most of the rations in a forage-based diet. The lack of good quality seedlings/seeds, notably improved varieties, is the primary reason for the slow adoption of improved forage production technologies. Traditional establishment of bajra napier forage incurs more labour costs, harvesting sett material, transporting, preparing two budded setts and carrying to the planting area. Nearly three to four tons of green leaves stem materials are wasted for planting one hectare of area. In this situation, an alternate method is required to produce high-quality seedlings in a short period. This research objective compared single node bud chip seedling in different protray cell cavities and pot mixtures. Methods: The green shade net field study was carried out between 2019 and 2020, the effect of different pro-tray sizes (50, 60 and 98 cell cavities) and potting mixture (red earth, cocopeat, farmyard manure, vermicompost and root growth promoters like phosphobacteria bio-fertilizer and indole acetic acid (IAA) was taken in different combination for the establishment of Bajra Napier hybrid variety Co (BN)-5 seedling by using single node bud chip technology. The observation was taken up to 30 days in related to seedling growth and development. The observed parameter was statistically analysed in SPSS software. Result: Among the three different protray cavities and five different pot mixtures, 60 cavity protray with red earth + cocopeat + vermicompost (2:1:1) results revealed significant differences (p greater than 0.05) in seedling growth parameters among the different protray and growing media. The maximum seedling growth parameters like germination, numbers of the leaf, plant height, leaf length, width and root length (94.4 per cent, 8.17, 39.12 cm, 38.14 cm, 2.5 cm and 30.8 cm) were observed at 30 days aged seedlings followed by red earth + cocopeat + farmyard manure (2:1:1 ratio) and treated with IAA substance in 60 cavity protray.