Field experiment was conducted at G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarkahand, during the winter (rabi) season of 2014–15.The study aimed to investigate the effect of leaf colour chart (LCC) and chlorophyll meter (SPAD meter) based nitrogen management on wheat crop. Application of nitrogen at lower rate of 105 kg /ha based on LCC value (4 and 5) and SPAD (30 and 40) resulted statistically similar growth, yield attributes viz., plant height, shoot density, dry matter, leaf area index, number of grains per spike and 1000 grains weight compared with recommended practice (150 kg/ha) in turns resulted into at par grain yield but significantly superior over LCC and SPAD based treatment of 85 kg N/ha and control treatment. Similar trend was observed in physiological parameters viz., chlorophyll content, chlorophyll meters reading (SPAD value), efficiency of photosystem II (Fv/Fm) and total nitrogen uptake. Higher numerical value of nitrogen use efficiency in terms of agronomic efficiency, recovery efficiency obtained from LCC and SPAD based treatments of 105 kg/ha than recommended nitrogen management. Thus study concluded that LCC and SPAD are the effective tools which help to uptake applied nitrogen more efficiently rather than subjected to losses and make more economic use of absorbed nitrogen with the saving of 30 per cent or 45 kg /ha nitrogen without any significant yield decrement.

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