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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 study was conducted to quantify the effects of drip irrigation levels and black plastic mulch on bell pepper production under a naturally ventilated polyhouse in Tarai region of Uttarakhand during Rabi 2014-15.The experiment was laid out in randomized block design with three replications keeping four drip irrigation levels (100, 80, 60 and 40 % of crop water requirement) and surface irrigation in conjunction with black plastic mulch and without mulch. It was observed that plant morphological parameters viz. plant height, fresh and dry weight of plant and root and fruit characters such as number of fruits per plant, average fruit weight, fruit length &diameter, polar & lateral circumstances of fruit and total yield were significantly increased by drip irrigation alone as well as in conjunction with black plastic mulch. Drip irrigation at 80% of crop water requirement gave the highest yield of fruits (83.22 t/ha), whereas it was the least (66.99 t/ha) in case of surface irrigation. The yield was further increased by the use of black polyethylene mulch (88.99 t/ha).It was also observed that drip irrigation both with and without plastic mulch registered much higher water use efficiency (WUE) compared to surface irrigation. The minimum water use efficiency of 142.4 kg ha-1 mm-1was obtained for the plots receiving surface irrigation without the mulch. The use of black film in case of surface irrigation increased the WUE to 163.2 kg ha-1 mm-1.