ABSTRACT
An experiment was conducted with four dates of sowing (Second fortnight of May, First fortnight of June, Second fortnight of June and First fortnight of July) and four Varieties (TMV-2, JL-24, Narayani and Abhaya). There was wide variation in the weather conditions that prevailed over the cropping periods between the two years of experimentation. During the first year (2006) a continuous dryspell of 51 days prevailed which coincided with different growth stages of groundnut under different dates of sowing. This dry spell has not favoured the growth and development of crop, instead, it has increased the crop duration of different varieties of groundnut studied under the present investigation. The crop duration was 139-146 days in early sown crop to 110-125 days in normal sown crop compared to normal duration of 105 to 120 days. However, the second year (2007) is normal with better temporal distribution of rains and the crop duration ranged from 104-120 days in early sown crop to 108-121 days under normal sown crop. The length of growth period in 2006 is due to receipt of continuous rains after dry spell of 51 days from seed development phase to physiological maturity. In 2007,the crop which received heavy rains (22 June sown crop ) from 90 DAS to harvest was adversely affected resulting poor filling and low yields. The results revealed that Sowing during July first fortnight was found to be optimum time for groundnut during drought year, while during normal year advancing the sowing date by one month may also favour good crop provided there were good rains. The performance of Abhaya cultivar was better than the Narayani, TMV-2 and JL-24 under different kinds of environments like extreme moisture stress, stress free or even under moderate stress conditions. However, in normal year TMV-2 and JL-24 performance was also good compared to drought year.