Effect of organic and inorganic mulching on weed density and productivity of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.)

Use of mulches has been an effective and low cost strategy to increase the yield of vegetable crops. The experiment was conducted at Defence Institute of Bio-Energy Research (DIBER), Haldwani in tarai region of central Himalaya. Both organic and inorganic mulches were used on four tomato varieties to study varietal response to mulching. Results revealed that mulching has significant beneficial effect on fruit yield over control. All the tomato lines used under study responded to mulching treatments and exhibited increase in fruit yield. Weed density was the lowest (2 weeds/m(2)) in black polythene and the highest in control (80 weeds/m(2)). Among the inorganic mulches, transparent polythene could not suppress the growth of weeds as the sunlight was available for weeds to grow. Dry weight of weeds under transparent polythene was 56 g/m(2), whereas among the organic mulches dry weight of weeds was 108 (dencha husk) to 216 g/m(2) (rice straw). Inorganic mulches were found effective in prolonging the crop duration significantly with black polythene almost doubling the duration of fruit availability (62 days) compared to control (32 days).