Madhuri Meena, L.R. Yadav, K.L. Regar, G.L. Choudhary, R. Verma and P. Deewan
Abstract
A field experiment was conducted on loamy sand soil during rabi, 2009-10 to find out the effect of irrigation and mulching practices on quality, N uptake, water use efficiency and economics of fennel. Results revealed that application of 6 irrigations significantly increased the essential oil content, protein content in seed, nitrogen content in seed and stover, total N uptake, consumptive use of water and net returns over 4 and 5 irrigations, but remained at par with 7 irrigations. However, water use efficiency was found maximum with 4 irrigations. Results further indicated that application of straw mulch significantly increased protein content in seed, nitrogen content in seed and stover, total N uptake, water use efficiency and net returns over control, dust and plastic mulch. Whereas, total N uptake increased and water use decreased significantly with straw mulch as compared to control and dust mulch, but remained at par with plastic mulch.