Nutrient management in safflower (Carthamus tinctorius) under rice based cropping system

The present research entitled “Nutrient management in safflower (Carthamus tinctorius) under rice based cropping systems” conducted during rabi season of 2023-24 at Research cum Instructional Farm, College of agriculture IGKV, Raipur, Chhattisgarh. In Experiment was conducted in Randomized block design with 3 replication and 7 treatment viz, T1 – no fertilizer, T2 – 5t FYM ha-1, T3 – RDF (90:40:30 kg ha-1), T4 – 50% RDF, T5 – STCR equation based 50% NPK, T6 - STCR equation based 75% NPK, T7 - (targeted yield 2000 kg ha-1, STCR equation based 100% NPK).Results revealed that growth attributing characters viz., plant height, number of branches plant-1, number of leaves plant-1, leaf area plant-1, leaf area index, dry matter accumulation, crop growth rate, relative growth rate, SPAD value, days of 50% flowering as well as yield attributes viz., number of capitula plant-1, number of seeds capitulam-1, 1000 seed weight, seed yield, stover yield, harvest index were found to be maximum under treatment T6: STCR equation based 75% NPK followed by treatment T7: (targeted yield 2000 kg ha-1, STCR equation based 100% NPK). The significantly minimum values of above characters were recorded in treatment T1: no fertilizer. In terms of economics, maximum gross return, net return and benefit-cost ratio were fetched under treatment T6: STCR equation based 75% NPK, followed by treatment T7: (targeted yield 2000 kg ha-1, STCR equation based 100% NPK).