Abstract

Ragi forms one of the most important staple food crops in India and yet enough effort has not been made to assess precisely its response to manures and fertilizers. The importance of nitrogen in increasing cereal yields is widely accepted (Lipman, 1932; Karunakar, 1951 and Church, 1956). However, contradictions in opinions exist on the effect of nitrogen in increasing protein content in cereals. Ohlrogge (1949) and other workers opined that large increase in yield in relation to nitrogen was not accompanied by any change or decrease in protein, on the other hand, reverse was also true (Bisset and Andrews, 1954; Huppert and Buchner, 1957 and Miller, 1958). But instances at which higher doses of nitrogen decreasing protein content were also met with (Patterson, 1932). The indirect influence of nitrogen also found by its enhancing effect on the translocation of P from vegetative parts to grains (Bennet, 1939). Besides nitrogen, the effect and usefulness of P and K for satisfactory growth of Ragi crop have been reported by Govindarajan and Venkata Rao (1952) Thus a judicial combination of N, P and K was visualised and recommended for Ragi crop (Mariakulandai, 1960; Venkataramana and Krishna Rao, 1961 and Sanyasi Raju, 1952).

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