Modifying profile water storage through tillage,herbicide, chemical evaporation retardent and straw mulch and its effect on rainfed chickpea (Cicer arientinum L.)

The influence of tillage, herbicide (paraquat), evaporation retardents (white opaque polythene and hexadecanol) and straw mulch, applied in the post-monsoon pre-seeding period, on soil moisture conservation and yield of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) was studied in a 2-year field experiment. These practices all proved to be useful in conserving more soil moisture in the 180 cm deep soil profile. Opaque polythene conserved most moisture, followed by straw mulch with an average increase of 47 mm (24%) and 32 mm (16%) over the control. Polythene and straw mulch greatly improved moisture in the seeding zone; tillage, hexadecanol and paraquat were also useful. Soil moisture conservation treatments improved plant stand, profile water use, yield and yield components. The effect of treatments varied with crop season rainfall. In the first year, with low rainfall (51 mm), polythene and straw mulch significantly increased the grain yield over other treatments. Hexadecanol, tillage and herbicide also tended to increase yields. In the second, wetter crop season (rainfall 139 mm), the differences in yield between treatments were not significant though the trend was similar to the dry year. Polythene and straw mulch increased yields over the control by 690 and 536 kg/ha in the first year and 399 and 281 kg/ha in the second year. Polythene and hexadecanol being costly, straw mulch, tillage and herbicide offer scope for adoption at field scale.