Effect of Microbial Consortium and Nutrient Management on Growth & Yield of Clusterbean [Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L.) Taub.]

Clusterbean (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba L.) is an important drought-tolerant legume of arid and semi-arid regions, valued for its multipurpose use and industrial significance due to galactomannan gum. However, its productivity remains constrained by poor soil fertility and imbalanced nutrient management, necessitating integrated approaches to enhance nutrient use efficiency and sustain soil health. The field experiment was conducted to study the effect of microbial consortium and nutrient management on the growth and yield of Clusterbean (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L.) Taub.) under semi-arid conditions at the research farm of Rajasthan Agricultural Research Institute, Durgapura, Jaipur during kharif 2023-2024. The experiment was laid out in a randomized block design with three replications and eight treatments consisting of different levels of recommended dose of fertilizers (100%, 75% and 50%) in combination with microbial consortium which was applied through seed treatment and soil application. The findings of the experiment showed that the combined use of microbial consortium along with different level of fertilizers had a significant positive effect on crop growth and yield. Significantly higher results were obtained in treatment T4 (100% RDF + seed treatment with microbial consortium and soil application of microbial consortium) which produced the highest seed yield (1454 kg ha⁻¹) along with better growth attributes such as number of branches per plant (9.88), number of pods per plant (79.90) and pod length (9.74 cm) which was at par with treatment T7 (75% RDF + seed treatment with microbial consortium and soil application of microbial consortium) for many observations as mentioned in detail in the paper. Based on the results obtained, it can be concluded that improvement in crop performance can be achieved by application of microbial consortium when applied along with fertilizers. The study also indicates that fertilizer dose can be reduced to 75% when combined application of fertilizers is done with microbial consortium without suffering any noticeable reduction in yield, which helps in maintaining soil health and reducing input costs.