Effect of Irrigation Levels on Growth and Yield of Okra under Mulching

A field experiment was carried out to evaluate the mulching and different irrigation levels on growth and yield of okra at farm, college of agricultural engineering Kandi, Sangareddy. The treatments of the study comprised of randomized block design with black plastic mulch (BPM) and silver plastic mulch (SPM) under drip irrigation. Three different irrigation levels 1.2 ET, 1.0 ET and 0.75 ET were used for comparative study. Irrigation scheduling throughout the crop period was done by installing open pan evaporimeter. The pan evaporation and crop evapotranspiration values significantly vary over different stages of okra crop. The maximum and minimum average daily pan evaporation was recorded 17 mm and 1 mm at mid stage and late stage of okra crop respectively while, the maximum average daily ETc was recorded 9 mm day-1 at mid stage of okra crop. Vegetative parameters such as Plant height, No. of leaves, No. of branches and yield parameters i.e., pod length, pod per plant, pod weight, pod yield were observed to be affected by irrigation levels and mulching. The study revealed that vegetative growth found good in silver plastic mulch for all the treatments as compared to black plastic mulch. The yield is observed maximum in BPM under 1.0 ET and found to be most suitable for getting higher yield of okra due to optimum irrigation level.