Effect of mulching on important soil physico-chemical properties of Khasi mandarin (Citrus reticulata Blanco) orchard under mid-hill region of Nagaland

Abstract

An experiment was conducted during 2016-18 to study the response of different organic (rice husk, saw dust, chopped banana leaves & pseudo-stem, FYM, forest leaves and rice straw) and inorganic (black polythene and transparent polythene of 100µ) mulching materials in Khasi mandarin orchard. Studies on the effect of mulching on soil bulk density was significantly higher under no mulch recording 1.22g cm-3 in both the years followed by black polythene mulch recording pooled value of 1.19g cm-3. The lowest bulk density was recorded in saw dust mulch with a pooled recording of 1.11g cm-3. The data pertaining to particle density among various treatments did not show any significant difference. The water holding capacity was significantly higher in black polythene mulch and minimum in no mulch. The test for analyzing the soil pH showed there was no significant difference with the treatments in the first year however, the second year of experiment resulted in significant decrease in various organic mulches. The treatment using FYM mulch gave the highest organic carbon content of 3.07%, significantly highest available nitrogen (525.12kg ha-1), maximum available phosphorus (20.88kg ha-1) and revealed the highest available potassium (320.21kg ha-1) and the lowest was found in treatment devoid of mulch for all parameters tested.