Performance of organically grown garden pea varieties in the south Chhotanagpur plateau of eastern India

Abstract: Garden pea is one of the most popular winter vegetables in India and the south Chhotanagpur plateau of eastern India is well-known for its quality production. However, indiscriminate uses of different agrochemicals in the production cycle of the crop reduces its quality. Besides, the high cost concerning chemical farming is practically out of reach to the small and marginal farmers of the eastern Indian plateau. In this context, low-cost involving alternative approach of organic farming that has the potential to produce quality yield is gaining popularity. The experiment consisted of seven commonly cultivated garden pea varieties of the region, namely, V₁:GS-10, V₂: HAEP-1, V₃: HAEP-2, V₄: Swarna Mukti, V₅: Swarna Amar, V₆: Azad Pea-3 and V₇: Azad Pea-1 grown through the application of three organic liquid manures viz. T₁: Shasyagavya (10 %); T₂: Sanjeevani (10 %); T₃: Enriched Sanjeevani (10 %) and including control (T₄ ) where no liquid formulation was applied during rabi growing season of two consecutive years (2017-18 and 2018-19) by adopting Factorial RBD experimental design. Different growth, yield, and quality attributing characters of the crop were studied and found to be significant under different treatments. Results revealed that V₅ is the best-performing variety in terms of green pod yield (19.55t ha^-1). However, when treatment and varietal interactions were taken into consideration, T₃V₆ was the best combination with green pod yield of 23.10 t ha^-1. Quality attributes like TSS, starch, protein and ascorbic acid content of green peas performed significantly better independently under different treatments than control. From the findings, it may be concluded that Swarna Amar and Azad Pea-3 were highly responsive to organic liquid manure especially ‘Enriched Sanjeevani’ in terms of their growth, yield and quality traits expressions in the south Chhotanagpur plateau of eastern India.