Assessment of Crop Residue Mulches on Morphological Traits and Yield of Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum L.) in North Bihar Region

Organic mulches are easily available and cheap in North Bihar region. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to find out the suitability of different types of organic mulches in tomato cultivation. Among the vegetables tomato cultivation faces challenges in producing crop without chemicals for effective weed control. Use of several kinds of mulches gives the opportunity to control weeds effectively, regulate soil temperature and also lower down evaporation from the soil. The experiment was conducted in Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Jalalgarh, Purnea during 2015 and 2016. The treatments were designed by using different organic materials as mulch i.e. pea straw, dry neem leaves, paddy straw and one control without mulch. The observations were recorded on plant height (cm), number of branches per plant, days to 50% flowering, average fruit weight (gm) and total fruit yield (q/ha). The mulches were spread after twenty days of the transplanting of tomato seedlings in 10 cm thick layer. The result of the experiment indicates that organic mulches reduced soil temperature and weed infestation. All these enhanced the growth and fruit yield of tomato as well as weed control, soil moisture conservation and temperature modification resulted good crop growth with more quality fruit yield.