Effect of drip fertigation and polyethylene mulching on growth, yield and input use efficiency of pointed gourd in eastern coastal plain zone of Odisha Dalai A.*, Pradhan P.C., Dash D.K. Precision Farming Development Centre, OUAT, Bhubaneswar-751003 *E-mail: pcpradhan@gmail.com
Online published on 15 March, 2019. Abstract Field experiments were conducted during 2015–17 at Precision Farming Development Centre, Bhubaneswar to study the effect of drip fertigation and polyethylene mulching on pointed gourd (Trichosanthes dioica) cv. Swarna Aloukik. The experiment was laid out in randomized block design with seven treatments and three replications. The treatments T1, T2, T3 comprised of 100, 80 and 60% levels of fertigation and T4, T5 and T6 refers to 100, 80 and 60% levels of fertigation with polyethylene mulching, respectively. The treatment T7 was taken as control with drip irrigation and basal application of recommended dose of fertilizer. The recorded data on the growth parameters and yield of pointed gourd revealed that the plant height, canopy development and other plant growth parameters were higher in the treatment with 100% fertigation of NPK with polyethylene mulch (T4) when compared to other treatments. Similarly, the yield attributing character viz., fruit weight, fruit length, fruit girth were recorded maximum values of 28.3, 9.25, 9.28 cm, respectively in T4 and the lowest values were recorded in control. Hence pointed gourd yield subsequently recorded highest value in T4 followed by T5 which are significantly higher than T7. Likewise superior water use efficiency (WUE) and nutrient use efficiency were observed in all the polyethylene mulch combination treatments when compared with other treatments without mulch. The study emphasized that adoption of drip fertigation with polyethylene mulching increases the productivity in pointed gourd, besides ensuring the higher efficiency of water and nutrients. Pooled data of 2015–16 and 2016–17 indicated that drip fertigation with mulching resulted 26% and 27% increase in yield and irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE), respectively over drip irrigation with soil application of fertilizers. Top Keywords Low density polyethylene, Randomized block design. Top |