Quality improvement in wheat through agronomical management

The delayed sowing reduced the growth significantly in terms of plant height, biomass accumulation, crop growth rate, leaf area index, leaf area duration, yield attributes and yield with increased quantum under very late than late over timely sown crop. This resulted into 23 kg ha-1 day-1 and 30 kg ha-1 day-1 reduction in grain yield with the delay in sowing by 20 and 40 days, respectively. The increase in splits and foliar application increased maturity duration, duration of reproductive phase, grain growth duration. The application of 150 kg N ha-1 in two splits increased the grain yield by 51.8% over control. Further increase in split with spray application at anthesis increase the quantum of grain by 5.9 per cent. The increased splits and foliar spray over control increased the nitrogen uptake, nitrogen recovery (9.1%),agronomic efficiency (16%),nitrogen use efficiency (8%) with an increase of about one percent in protein content, two per cent in wet gluten and zeleny content. The foliar application significantly increased the protein fractions in wheat grain viz., albumin, globulin, prolamin and glutenin along with sedimentation value.