Chand, SatishNautiyal, Prerna2022-10-052022-10-052022-08https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810188601The present investigation was carried out at Horticulture Research Centre, Patharchatta, of the University during March 2022 to June 2022. The litchi trees planted at a spacing of 5m × 5m were subjected to drip irrigation with or without mulch along with one control. There were twelve treatment combinations including drip irrigation at 50 per cent, 75 per cent and 100 per cent of estimated water requirement along with black polyethylene (100 micron UV stabilized) and litchi leaf mulch (10 cm thickness). Whereas, the control involved flood irrigation along with unmulched condition. The experiment was laid out in randomized block design comprising three replications. The objective of investigation were to study the effect of above treatments on vegetative growth, flowering, yield, fruit quality attributes and water use efficiency on 22 year old litchi tree cv. Rose Scented. Non- significant effect of above treatments on vegetative growth and floral characters were recorded. But, significant effect on fruiting, yield and other quality attributes was found. The fruit set and fruit drop percentage also varied significantly due to the effect of mulch and drip irrigation. Further, minimum fruit cracking (8.50%), maximum fruit number (1375.28/tree) and yield (32.28 kg/tree) were recorded under M1DI3 (i.e. black polyethylene mulch with drip irrigation at 100% level). In terms of fruit quality, the treatment M1DI3 was found superior with maximum fruit weight (23.79 g/fruit), length (34.07 mm/fruit), width (29.25 mm/fruit), volume (22.08 ml/fruit), pulp weight (15.48 g/fruit), T.S.S (18.77°B), ascorbic acid (29.04 mg/100g) and total sugars (16.33%). The maximum (15.81 kg/m3) water use efficiency was registered under the treatment M1DI1 (i.e. black polyethylene mulch with drip irrigation at 50% level). Overall, the study revealed that application of black polyethylene mulch with drip irrigation at 100 per cent level (M1DI3) was better over other treatments but in terms of water use efficiency, the treatment combination M1DI1 was found most beneficial.EnglishThesis