Impact of various types of mulch materials on plant growth, yield and quality attributes of kinnow mandarin

Among Citrus fruits, Kinnow mandarin is one of the significantly important fruit crops commercially grown in North-Western parts of India. However, due to climate change scarcity of water and soil degradation are the challenging problems, which can cause economic loss to growers. Thus, use of mulching is the one of the appropriate practice for sustainable fruit production.

The experiment consisted of six different types of mulch materials including inorganic and organic mulches like polyethylene (bicolour), bio-mulch (dried local weeds/grasses), mustard straw mulch, sugarcane trash mulch, control (no mulching+no weeding) and hand weeding were applied under Kinnow mandarin trees. The experiment was laid out in randomized block design with three replications.

The findings of the study revealed that maximum canopy volume (5.62 m³), number of fruits (485.30 tree^-1), fruit yield (95.44 kg tree^-1) fruit length, fruit width, fruit weight, total soluble solids, ascorbic acid and juice content (6.51 cm, 8.07 cm, 196.74 g, 12.47°Brix, 46.89 mg/100 ml and 51.37%, respectively) with minimum peel thickness (2.10 mm) and acidity (1.03%) were recorded with bicolour polyethylene mulch followed by sugarcane trash mulch and were the lowest in control. The highest B:C ratio of 2.49 was obtained from the bicolour polyethylene mulch followed by sugarcane trash mulch (2.45) as compared to control (1.96).