Influence of Weather and Growth Parameters on Yield of Pigeon pea in an Alfisol of Karnataka

In field trials for six years, the influence of weather parameters on pigeon pea was studied in the Alfisols of Bengaluru, Karnataka. Pooled analysis revealed that for delay in sowing by each day, the normal sowing month from June resulted in decreased yield of pigeon pea by 11.13 kg ha-1, thus indicating the importance of early and timely sowing to get the advantage of higher rainfall, rainy days (RD), length of growing period (LGP in days), growing degree days (GDD) and leaf area duration (LAD in days). Among the above RD, LGP, GDD, LAD were found to have influenced the yield of pigeon pea in Alfisols significantly. For achieving maximum yield, the optimum values of the above parameters obtained from the fitted quadratic curves, were 90 RD, 2600 GDD and 300 LAD during the cropping period. Among the 10 multiple linear regression (MLR) models established, model V was found to be the most reliable in judging the yield potential of pigeon pea.