Year: 2025 | Month: March | Volume 70 | Issue 1
Comparative Performance of Jute Non-woven Mulch, Rice
Straw and Polythene Mulch in Improving Growth and
Productivity of Broccoli (Brassica oleracea var italica) and
Economics Thereof
S.B. Roy
B. Duary
S. Debnath
D.P. Ray
R.K. Mishra
T.K. Kundu
K. Mitra
A. Pradhan
Ruchi Bharti
Prianty Chakraborty and M. Bauri
DOI:10.46852/0424-2513.1.2025.17
Abstract:
Mulching provides favourable environment for crop with multiple advantages including better crop yields. An experiment was conducted in a farmer’s field at village Srichandrapur of Birbhum district, West Bengal during rabi season of 2022 and 2023 to study the comparative performance of jute non-woven mulch, straw and polythene mulch in improving growth and productivity of broccoli. Seven mulching treatments namely Jute non-woven mulch (250 gsm) (T1); Jute non-woven mulch (450 gsm) (T2); Straw
mulch @ 3.5 t/ha (T3); Straw mulch @ 4.0 t/ha (T4); Polythene mulch (25 micron) (T5); Polythene mulch (50 micron) (T6) and Control- no mulch (T7) were assigned in a randomised block design replicated thrice. Experimental findings revealed that both the Jute non-woven mulch (T2, T1) and Polythene mulch (50 micron) (T6) registered higher values of growth attributing factors like plant height, leaf area, number of leaves per plant over control plot and curd fresh weight of Broccoli during both the years. All the mulching treatments significantly reduced the total weed density and total weed dry weight over no mulch. However, T1 and T2 were found more efficient which registered 89.24 and 90.6% lower weed density, 93.69 and 94.38% lower weed dry weight and 42.52 and 44.68% higher fresh weight of broccoli in 2022 and 2023, respectively. Though Jute non-woven mulch fetched higher gross return but net return and return per rupee invested were lower as compared to other mulch materials.
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