EFFECT OF BORON APPLICATION, MOISTURE REGIMES AND MULCHING ON SOIL BORON FRACTIONS AND PRODUCTIVITY OF CAULIFLOWER.
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Date
2019-07-18
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Division of Soil Science and Agriculture Chemistry Sher-e- Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Jammu
Abstract
An investigation entitled “Effect of boron application, moisture regimes and mulching on soil boron fractions and productivity of cauliflower” was conducted during two successive Rabi 2015-16 and 2016-17.The treatment comprises of four levels of boron viz., B0, B2.5, B5.0, and B7.5 applied through borax (@ 0, 2.5, 5.0 and 7.5 kg ha-1), two levels of soil mulching (M) viz., no mulch (M0) and straw mulch @ 6 t ha-1 (M1); and two levels of moisture regimes(W) viz., W1(20 % reduction of plant available water), W2(30 % reduction of plant available water) constituting 16 treatment combinations replicated thrice in factorial randomized block design. Out of the four B levels taken into account, B5.0, exhibited the highest average curd yield of cauliflower (two years pooled data) amounting 314.90 q ha-1, which was statistically superior over the control (275.13 q ha-1) registering 14.45 % improvement. Other two B levels viz., B2.5 and B7.5 exhibited lower than that of B5.0. Regardless of B levels and mulching, the mean curd yield (299.66 q ha-1) under 20 % reduction of PAW moisture regimes (W1) were statistically superior over 293.85 q ha-1, under 30% reduction of PAW (W2). No consistent interaction effect of B, mulching and moisture regimes were observed. Irrespective of B levels and moisture regimes, maximum curd yield 300.03 q ha-1 was realized with straw mulch @ 6 t ha-1 (M1) followed by no mulch (M0) where yield was 291.95 q ha-1, indicating statistically significant difference with respect to the other treatments. The uptake of B was 40.66 g ha-1 witnessed significantly different with B5.0 treatment irrespective of mulching and moisture regimes. Irrespective of boron levels and moisture regime, the boron uptake increased significantly with straw mulch @ 6 t ha-1 (37.06 g ha-1) over M0 (35.05 g ha-1) registering 5.73 % enhancement. Regarding readily soluble boron (RSB) during 2015-16 increased with successive increase of B levels and ranged from 0.136 with B0 to 0.309 mg kg-1 with B7.5, similarly it was 0.167 to 0.327 mg kg-1 during 2016-17. Significant improvement through mulching was pronounced in RSB in both the years. Specifically adsorbed boron (SPAB) was also tend to increase with the applied B levels from 0.275 to 0.319 mg kg-1 with B0 and B 7.5 respectively during 2015-16: while the same were 0.285 to 0.343 during 2016-17. The SPAB was also affected by mulching with a value of 0.290 with M0 and 0.300 with M1 during 2015-16 and the same was 0.285 to 0.343 mg kg-1 during next year. Organically bound boron (ORGB) differed significantly from 0.673 to 1.162 during 2015-16 and 0.698 to 1.226 mg kg-1 during 2016-17. Residual boron (RESB) fraction varied from 33.031 to 34.924 during 2015-16 and 33.283 to 35.268 mg kg-1 during 2016-17. Oxide bound boron (OXB) varied from 0.140 to 0.196 during 2015-16 and 0.172 to 0.234 mg kg-1 during following year with B0 and B7.5 respectively. Mulching was found to alter the value of RESB from 33.978 to 33.795 mg kg-1 during 2015-16 and same 34.210 and 34.028 mg kg-1 during 2016-17 with M0 and M1 respectively. Significant correlation were obtained among yield as well as uptake with RSB, SPAB, OXB, ORGB and RESB. The step down regression equations showed that the B uptake R2 value varied from 0.940 with RSB only, 0.945 with RSB and SPAB and 0.955 with RSB, SPAB and OXB respectively. Application of 5.0 kg borax ha-1 along with 30 t ha-1 FYM as well as straw mulching @ 6 t ha-1 was found best to ameliorate the B deficiency and boosting the productivity of cauliflower in light textured soils of subtropical Jammu.