Effect of in-situ moisture conservation practices on selected vegetable crops in North Eastern Ghat Zone of Odisha

Abstract

The experiment was conducted at research farm of All India Coordinated Research Project for Dryland Agriculture, Phulbani, Odisha, India, during kharif season of 2015 and 2016 to study effect of different in-situ moisture conservation practices on growth, yield and water productivity of major kharif vegetable crops such as cauliflower, tomato and okra. The different in-situ moisture conservation practices adopted in this experiment were (i) broad bed furrow system (BBFS) (ii) BBFS with organic mulching (iii) ridge furrow system (RFS) (iv) RFS with organic mulching for cauliflower, tomato and okra crops. The results of the experiment revealed that RFS with organic mulching resulted in highest yield as compared to other treatments in all the three vegetable crops. Rain Water Use Efficiency (RWUE kg ha-1mm-1) was also found to be the highest in case of RFS with organic mulching in tomato crop (24.14) followed by 12.44 and 12.31 in okra and cauliflower, respectively. The RFS with mulching helps to conserve water when there was lower rainfall by holding water in ridges, and when there was higher rainfall, this helps to drain the excess water thus avoiding water logging situation.