Includes bibliographical references.

A range of factors affects the growth and yield of a crop. Optimum crop geometry ensures optimum plant population at harvest and also the space available for individual plant for efficient utilization of natural resources. Nutrients are key elements for crop growth and a crop would attain its full potential only under optimum supply of favourable nutrients. Moreover, crop geometry and nutrient sources had a significant impact on succeeding crops and effects the profitability of the cultivation. Therefore, in order to study the influence of crop geometry and nutrient sources on growth, yield, residual soil fertility and economics of buckwheat cultivation, a field experiment entitled “Performance of Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) under varied crop geometry and nutrient sources in mid hills of Meghalaya’’ was carried out during rabi season of 2022 at the experimental farm of College of Post Graduate Studies in Agricultural Sciences (CAU, Imphal), Umiam. The experiment waslaid out in Split Plot Design with four nutrient sources as main plot treatments, viz., Control (N1), FYM @ 5 t ha-1 (N2), RDF @30:20:20 kg ha-1 of N:P2O5:K2O (N3) and ST with Beejamrit + foliar spray of Jeevamrit @15 days interval (N4); and three crop geometry as sub plot treatments, viz., 30 cm x 10 cm (C1), 30 cm x 15 cm (C2) and 30cm x 20 cm (C3), which were replicated thrice.
Experimental findings revealed that almost all the crop growth parameters such as plant height, leaf area, number of leaves, Leaf Area Index (LAI) and dry weight were significantly influenced by different nutrient sources while crop geometry had less influence on it. In main plots, buckwheat treated with N3 produced the highest biological yield (3.27 t ha-1), seed yield (0.99 t ha-1) and straw yield (2.28 tha-1), which were significantly higher than the yields produced from all other nutrient sources. In sub plots, buckwheat grown in C1 produced the highest biological yield (3.62 t ha-1), seed yield (1.09 t ha-1) and straw yield (2.52 t ha-1), which were also significantly higher than the yields produced from the other crop geometries. Largest amount of available N, P and K of the soil after harvest in main plots were found with N2, while the lowest amount of available N, P and K in sub plots were found in C1. Net return was worked out the highest with N3 (₹ 33,500 ha-1) and C1 (₹ 45,559 ha-1) in the main plot and sub plot respectively, while the lowest net return was worked out with N1 (₹ 27,398 ha-1) and C3 (₹ 13,412 ha-1) in the main plot and sub plot respectively. Highest B:C Ratio was worked out with N2 (2.10) and C1 (2.49) in the main plot and sub plot respectively, while the lowest was worked out with N4 (1.96) and C3 (1.48) in the main plot and sub plot respectively. From the experiment, it could be concluded that maintaining a crop geometry of 30 cm x 10 cm along with application of FYM @ 5 t ha-1 is the best strategy to adopt for the cultivation of Buckwheat in mid hills of Meghalaya.