Studies on Effect of Drip and Basin Irrigation on Pomegranate Grown in Laterite Soil through Farmers’ Understandable Approach

Abstract

The pomegranate is considered as one of the hardy fruit plants and has an ability to thrive under rainfed condition. However, for higher production of quality fruits, it requires water particularly during summer months for better quality harvest. For harnessing maximum efficiency from the drip system of irrigation, amount of water to be applied should be quantified. But no systematic research in this direction has been carried out to find out the exact quantity of water to be applied for higher production of quality pomegranate in laterite soil of West Bengal with the above objective. An investigation was therefore made in this direction. The treatment included as drip irrigation for 1, 2, and 3 hours duration at two days interval, with and without straw mulching, basin irrigation atl5 liters water/plant weekly with straw mulching and life saving irrigation with straw mulching, thereby consisting of 8 (eight) irrigation treatments in the experiment. The experiment was laid out in a randomized block design having six replications. The results from two consecutive years of experimentation revealed that fruit yield was highest (16.8 kg/plant) from the plant, received water through drip for 3 hours + without mulching followed by drip watering for one hour + mulching (13.6 kg/plant) which resulted maximum water use efficiency of 292.2 kg/ha/cm. In respect of fruit quality, juice quantity and TSS content were improved due to different irrigation treatments. Foliar N, P and K status was however varied due to different irrigation treatments and it was maximum in the plants received water through drip for 3 hours + without mulching and minimum from basin watered plants. The drip irrigated plants had less fruit cracking as compared to basin irrigated plants.