Effect of date of Sowing And Economics of Early Production of Cucurbitaceous Crops
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Date
2000
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Birsa Agricultural University, Ranchi
Abstract
Cucurbitaceous crops comprise an important and large group of vegetable crops of the family cururbitaceae. In plateau region of chotanagpur the farmers grow cucurbitaceous crops as summer and rainy season crops. However ,farmers can get more benefit by growing these crops in early summer, coinciding with peak consumer preference and high market price.
Therefore, the present investigation entitled “ Effect of date of sowing and economics of early production of cucurbitaceous crops” was undertaken to find out the suitable date of sowing and most economic crop among the four cucurbitaceous crops. The experiment was conducted with four popular cucurbitaceous crops, cucumber ,watermelon, longmelon and ridge gourd with three dates of sowing i.e. 30th November, 10th December and 20th December .The sowing was done in polythene tubes which was kept under polythene house for germination and growth till final shifting in the field. Planting was done on 20th January in the field in Randomized Block Design which was replicated three times.
Germination is affected by temperature and in general, more days are taken in germination at low temperature. In respect of growth characters first date of sowing (i.e. 30th November ) maintained its superity to subsequent dates in all the crops. Sex ratio male/female was found significantly lower at first date of sowing (i.e.30th November ) in compare to rest of sowing dates in all the cucurbitaceous crops. The highest yield in cucumber (123.07q/ha ) , watermelon (215.74q/ha ) and ridge gourd (108.9q/ha) were obtained when they were sown on 30th November.
Among the four crops tested, highest yield (159.78)q/ha) was obtained from watermelon, followed by cucumber (109.89 q/ha),longmelon (104.8q/h) and minimum (89.81q/ha) in ridge gourd .similarly ,highest net return was obtained in watermelon ,followed by cucumber and ridge gourd i.e. 34.69 ,27.36 and 25.03 thousand rupees/ha respectively, while minimum(14.34 thousand rupees/ha )was obtained in long melon.
On the basis of yield and economic ,30th November sowing was found best for all the four crops and watermelon gave more yield and maximum profit among different crops grown.