Effect of irrigation schedule on growth, yield and economics of spice crops

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted during rabi season of 2001-02 and 2002-03 at the instructional farm of the University, Raipur to investigate the effect of irrigation schedule in spice crops grown after medium duration rice. The treatments comprising six irrigation schedule, viz no irrigation, one irrigation at 35 days after sowing, 2 irrigations at 35 and 75 days after sowing, 3 irrigations at 35,60 and 85 days after sowing, irrigation schedule at 0.6 IW/CPE and at 0.8 IW/CPE were tested on 4 crops, viz coriander, black cumin, fenugreek and chickpea (check). The results of experiment on effect of irrigation schedule on productivity potential of spice crops revealed that the irrigation schedule at 0.8 IW/CPE gave significantly higher growth characters like plant height, number of branches, shoot and root dry biomass, seed yields, chickpea equivalent yield and net return and B:C ratio. However, all these characters are mostly comparable with the irrigation schedule at 0.6 IW/CPE and three irrigations at 35.60 and 85 days after sowing. Among the crops, highest chickpea yield, gross and net return and B:G ratio recorded with fenugreek. In general, all the three spice crops performed superior than the chickpea in regard to chickpea equivalent yield, net return and B:C ratio.