EFFECT OF MULCH ON SOIL TEMPERATURE, SOIL MOISTURE CONSERVATION AND YIELD OF CHILLI

The experiment was conducted at Regional Agricultural Research Station (RARS), Jamalpur, Bangladesh during the period of 2017-18 and 2018-19 with the objectives to evaluate the effect of different mulch on soil temperature, soil moisture conservation and yield attributes of chilli. There were five treatments comprising T1: no mulch, T2: rice straw mulch @ 5 t ha-1, T3: water hyacinth mulch @ 5 t ha-1, T4: black polyethylene mulch and T5: white polyethylene mulch. The results revealed that, all the mulch treatment had higher soil temperature and soil moisture content at 5 cm and 10 cm depth compared to no mulch treatment. Soil temperature was highest in black polyethylene mulch, it increased average soil temperature by about 5.7 oC at 5 cm depth and 5.1 oC at 10 cm depth compared to no mulch treatment at 120 Days. Rice straw mulch treatment recorded highest soil moisture, it increased average soil moisture about 27.87 % at 5 cm depth and 28.57% at 10 cm depth over no mulch treatment. Rice straw mulch treatment produced highest green chilli yield (8.81 t ha-1) which was 26.94 % increased over no mulch treatment (6.94 t ha-1).Considering economic analysis, highest gross return (Tk 352400 ha-1), gross margin (Tk 235400 ha-1) and BCR (3.01) was obtained from same treatment T2 i.e., rice straw mulch treatment.