Pantnagar Journal of Research

Abstract

Cucumber producers are looking for new cultivation practices to harvest best quality with higher yield and for off season cucumber production. So, protected cultivation is an alternative for them, widely selected by most of farmers and especially in Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh. Since, polyhouse production requires huge investment, time, labour and energy input. Therefore, study is needed to assess energy estimation in polyhouse cultivation and their adoptability and suitability to farmers to meet their economical status. The study was conducted to estimate source wise and operation wise energy inputs at different condition of cucumber cultivation in Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh in polyhouse and open field cultivation levels and compare them with the help of different energy indices. The study was carried out in the region by door to door survey and data were collected. Operation wise total energy input for both the system was 28626 and 69234 MJ/ha for open land and polyhouse respectively. Source wise the total energy input for polyhouse was 88085 MJ/ha and for open field it was 48299 MJ/ha. Energy ratio for polyhouse cucumber was 0.41 and for open land it was 0.25. Energy productivity for open land and polyhouse was 0.32 kg/MJ and 0.52 kg/MJ respectively. Specific energy for open land and polyhouse was 3.1MJ/Kg and 1.9 MJ/Kg for polyhouse. The results also indicated that in both production systems non- renewable source of energy was used predominantly compare to renewable energy sources. Non-renewable energy input for polyhouse cucumber was 89.8% and 92.5% for open-field cucumber of the total energy. The result indicated that energy wise open field cultivation of cucumber is not efficient due to very low output- input ratio of energy.