National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS)
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PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692 Online ISSN : 2319-7706 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com / submit@ijcmas.com Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39 NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38 |
A field experiment was conducted to study the effect of drip irrigation, fertigation and mulching on coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) var. VHC 3. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design (RBD) with seven treatments and three replications. The treatments comprised of 100% (T1), 80% (T2) and 60% (T3) recommended dose of fertilizer with 100 micron thickness plastic mulch and 100% (T4), 80% (T5) and 60% (T6) recommended dose of fertilizer without plastic mulch. The control was with conventional method of irrigation (basin irrigation) without mulch (T7). The recorded data on the growth and yield of coconut revealed that the plant height, canopy development and other plant growth parameters were higher in the treatment with 100% recommended dose of fertilizer (0.50:0.32:1.20 kg of NPK / tree) with 100 micron thickness plastic mulch (T1) when compared to other treatments. The maximum yield attributes viz., spathe length, number of inflorescence, number of bunches/palm/year and number of nuts/bunch of 127.76 cm, 13, 13 and 31, respectively were recorded in 100 % of recommended dose of drip fertigation with 100 micron plastic mulching. The lowest spathe length, number of inflorescence, number of bunches/palm/year and number of nuts/bunch of 92.16 cm, 8, 8 and 12, respectively were recorded in control treatment without mulch. The number of nuts per palm, an important yield contributing trait was promising with 292 nuts/ palm/ year in 100 % of recommended dose of drip fertigation with 100 micron plastic mulching (T1) treatment. Likewise gradual reductions in weed population, superior water use efficiency and nutrient use efficiency were observed in all the plastic mulch combination treatments when compared with other treatments without mulch.
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