Pigeonpea is generally grown in Kharif and its luxuriant growth very often create problem for spraying and other crop management. Nipping induces profuse branching, enlarge canopy and thus need more space for proper interception of solar radiation. Thus nipping and plant density has a close relation and thus it needs to be standardized. Keeping this in view a field experiment was conducted under AICRP on Pigeonpea during three consecutive years of kharif 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 at the Centre for Pulses Research, OUAT, Berhampur under rainfed condition to study the effect of nipping and spacing on crop growth and grain yield of medium duration pigeonpea. Pigeonpea variety Asha (ICPL 87119) was sown in Factorial Randomized Block Design with three replications. Altogether 12 treatment combinations comprised of two factors viz. Nipping -03(45DAS, 60DAS, No nipping) , and row spacing-04 ( 90cm, 120 cm, 150 cm, 180 cm)were taken . Row spacing significantly influence the crop yield and 120 cm X 30 cm was found most suitable and recorded maximum yield ( 1602 kg/ha) as compared to other spacing. The variety Asha is spreading type and having profuse branching habit. The productivity was 11% higher than present recommendation (90 cmX30 cm) which may be due to higher number of fruiting branches per plant. However, further increasing in row spacing failed to compensate the reduction in production due to the lower plant density. Nipping at 45 DAS recorded more number of primary fruiting branch per plant (10.3), number of effective pod per plant (160.1) and the grain yield (1416 kg/ha) as compared to nipping at 60 DAS(1341kg/ha) and no nipping(1182kg/ha). Interaction effect of nipping and spacing significantly influenced the crop yield and among the treatment combinations, row spacing 120cmX30cm + Nipping at 45DAS (T4) recorded maximum grain yield (1798 kg/ha), which was significantly superior to all treatments except T5 (row spacing 120cmX30cm + Nipping at 60DAS). This treatment had also recorded maximum harvest index (0.34), highest net return (Rs.66948/-) with B: C ratio (3.23). It is concluded that medium duration spreading type pigeonpea with row spacing of 120 cm (30 cm intra-row plant to plant) and nipping at 45DAS may be recommended for rainfed kharif upland situation in Odisha, for obtaining maximum grain yield and net return.

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