Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at the Instructional Farm, Agronomy, Rajasthan College of Agriculture, Udaipur (Rajasthan) during two consecutive rabi seasons of 2011–12 and 2012–13 to evaluate the performance of asalio under different sowing durations and stand geometries. The experiment was laid out in RBD (factorial) design with three replications, having four sowing durations (41 MW Oct. 08–14, 43 MW Oct. 22–28, 45 MW Nov.05–11 and 47 MW Nov. 19–25) and four stand geometries (30 x 10 cm, 30 x 15 cm, 40 x 10 cm and 40 x 15 cm). The experimental results revealed that crop sown during 43 MW recorded significantly higher yield attributes viz., 1000-seed weight, seed yield and harvest index as compared to 45 and 47 MW, respectively. Growth attributes viz., plant height (87.68 cm), leaf length (6.01 cm), crop growth rate g/m2/day and relative growth rate g/g/day were also higher with 43 MW. Stand geometry 30 x 10 cm increased significantly growth and yield attributes; contrarily 1000-seed weight was higher in 30 x 15 cm (1.993 g) when estimated with quality content parameters viz., oil, volatile essential oil, mucilage and phenol content was significantly higher with 43 MW and stand geometry 30 x 10 cm and it also recorded maximum B: C ratio (4.49 and 4.06), respectively.