Formerly International Journal of Basic and Applied Agricultural Research

Effect of mulches and irrigation schedules on productivity and water use efficiency of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) in Mollisols of India

RAKESH DAWAR and MAHENDRA SINGH PAL
Pantnagar Journal of Research, Volume - 19, Issue - 2 ( May-August, 2021)

Published: 2021-09-01

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Abstract


The field experiment was carried out during spring season 2019 at Forage Block, Instructional Dairy Farm, Nagla, G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar (Uttarakhand). The aim of the study was to find out the effect of mulches and irrigation schedules on productivity and water use efficiency of spring sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) in Mollisols of Uttarakhand. The results indicated that straw mulch produced taller plants and more number of leaves/plant and remained statistically at par with polythene mulch. However, polythene mulch had higher dry matter accumulation, leaf area index, head diameter, seed weight/plant, 100 seed weight and seed yield was 4.6 and 18.5% higher than straw mulch and control, respectively. The irrigation scheduled at 1.2 IW/CPE was superior to all other irrigation schedules with the highest values of growth and yield attributes and also produced seed yield 5.4, 11.1 and 14.8% higher than irrigation schedules 1.0 and 0.8 IW/CPE and critical growth stages, respectively. The polythene mulch and 1.2 IW/CPE gave higher water use efficiency. The net return was 4.4 and 6.8% higher under straw mulch than polythene mulch and control, respectively, while irrigation scheduled at 1.2 IW/CPE had 5.9, 13.79 and 15.12 % higher net return than irrigation scheduled at 1.0, 0.8 IW/CPE as well as critical stages, respectively. It is therefore concluded that sunflower may be grown with application of straw mulch @ 6 ton/ha and irrigation scheduled at 1.2 IW/CPE ratio for higher productivity, net return as well as water use efficiency during spring season in Mollisols of Uttarakhand and may also be replicated in similar agro-ecological zones of India.


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