Effect of foliar nutrition on the yield characters, yield attributes and yields of irrigated sesame in Cauvery Delta zone of Tamil Nadu

A field experiment was carried out at the Experimental Farm of the Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, Annamalai University, Annamalai Nagar, Tamil Nadu during 2024 to study the effect of foliar nutrition on the yield characters, yield attributes, and yields of sesame in an irrigated condition. The field experiment was laid out in a randomized block design with eleven treatments, each replicated three times. The sesame variety TMV 4 was chosen for the study. The treatments include foliar application of macronutrients such as DAP, KCl, NPK (19:19:19) and micronutrients (ZnSO4 , MnSO4 ) (30 & 45 DAS) alone and in combinations. The results of the experiment showed that the yield characters, yield attributes, and seed and stalk yields of sesame, including the number of capsules per plant (131.46), capsule length (2.58 cm), number of seeds per capsule (64.32), seed weight per plant (8.98 g), seed yield (877 kg/ha) and stalk yield (1885 kg/ha) were notably enhanced with the foliar application of 2% DAP, 0.5% KCl, 0.5% ZnSO4 , and 0.5% MnSO4 at 30 and 45 days after sowing (DAS) (T8 ). The same treatment also resulted in a higher harvest index value of 31.75%.