K.K. YADAV, ANKIT JAIN AND N.L. GURJAR
Abstract
The irrigation management in tomato is a big challenge. To address this issue, a field experiment was conducted for two consecutive years on clay loam soils at during kharif seasons 2022 and 2023 at Instructional Farm, College of Technology and Engineering, Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology, Udaipur (Rajasthan). The experiment consisted of 12 treatment combinations having three irrigation regimes (1.0, 0.8 and 0.6 IW/CPE) in main plots and four hydrogel levels (control, 10, 15 and 20 kg ha-1) in sub plots evaluated under Split Plot Design (SPD) with three replications. The variety tested under this experiment was USM Kareena. The impact of irrigation regimes and application of hydrogel on plant height, fruit yield of tomato and water use efficiency was found significant. The maximum plant height and fruit yield was found under irrigation regime I1 (1.0 IW/CPE) followed by I2 (0.8 IW/CPE) and I3 (0.6 IW/CPE) whereas the higher water use efficiency was recorded under lower levels of irrigation (0.6 IW/CPE). Among the different hydrogel (Fasal Amrit) doses, FA20 (20 kg hydrogel per hectare) demonstrated the higher plant height, fruit yield, and water use efficiency. Most of the soil parameters were remained nonsignificant with irrigations regimes except moisture content but the hydrogel application reduced the soil pH and increased soil organic carbon content significantly.