Rain water Harvesting and Drip Irrigation Integration in Banana: Experience through Farmer’s Participatory Action Research in Assam

Experiment to integrate rainwater harvesting with drip irrigation to increase productivity of Banana was conducted at Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat, Assam during 2009-10. A pond was designed, dug and lined with 200 micron thick LDPE film to cut off seepage losses. The Maximum of 0.50 ha-cm and minimum of 0.23 ha-cm of water was stored in the pond during the month of August and December respectively. The water thus harvested was utilized to irrigate 3400 m² of banana (cv. Bor Jahaji, Musa AAA group, Cavendish subgroup) plantation during November to April. Three levels of water application i.e. 1.0 and 0.75 times of pan evaporation (PE) measured by a USDA Class-A pan and no irrigation and three levels of mulching i.e. black plastic mulch, paddy straw mulch and no mulch was tested in a 3 x 3 factorial experiment in randomized block design (RBD). The analysis of data revealed that drip irrigation at 0.75 times PE produced the highest pseudostem height (275.28 cm), pseudostem girth (67.47 cm), total number of leaves (36.53), bunch weight (26.26 kg), hands/bunch (9.70), finger/hand (19.89) and yield (81.05 t/ha). Paddy straw mulch appeared superior to black plastic mulch and it recorded better pseudostem height (277.94 cm), number of leaves (36.74), pseudostem girth (68.41 cm), hands/bunch (9.75) and the total yield (80.07 t/ha). The technology was tested in farmers’ field in 3 locations through participatory action research during 2011-12. Increase in yield of up to 25% and BCR up to 4.17 was achieved in the farmers participatory action research.