Assessing designer seed and pink pigmented facultative microbes mitigating drought on cotton yield under rainfed condition

Fifty-one percentage of India’s net sown area comes under rainfed agriculture which contributes to nearly 40% of total food production. But constant fluctuations in total rainfall and its distribution severely affect the yield of rainfed crops. Such uncertainty in crop production necessitates the need to enhance the productivity from rainfed areas to meet the growing population demand by adapting suitable technologies. Considering these constraints, a field trial was carried out during 2022-23 at Agricultural Research Station (ARS), TNAU, Kovilpatti, India to evaluate the impact of drought mitigation technology on sustainable yield and economics of cotton grown in dryland situations. The trial conducted in Factorial Randomized Block Design (FRBD), treatment comprised of sowing of hardened seed (1% KCl) and designer seed in factor A and 6 different drought mitigation technologies viz., Pusa hydrogel at 2.5 kg ha-1 as basal, Mepiquat chloride spray at 250 ppm at 45 and 60 DAS, Cycocel at 250 ppm as foliar spray at 45 and 60 DAS, Cotton plus at 6.25 kg/ha as foliar spray at flowering and boll development stage, Pink Pigmented Facultative Methylotraphs (PPFM) spray at 500 mL/ha at square formation, flowering and boll enlargement stage along with control (no soil/foliar application) in Factor B and simulated thrice. Sowing designer cotton seed along with spraying PPFM at 500 mL ha-1 at square growth, flowering and boll enlargement stages recorded higher growth attributes, yield attributes and yield of cotton under rainfed conditions. Hence, farmers can get a higher percentage of the total (gross) income (13.5 and 31), net income (return) (28 and 62) and B:C value (12 and 23) when adopting sowing of designer cotton seed with spraying PPFM at 500 mL/ha respectively.