Effect of Irrigation Levels and Plant Growth Regulators on Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) under Poly House

Abstract

An experiment was conducted during the winter season of 2017-18 at College of agriculture, Bikaner to study the effect of irrigation levels and plant growth regulators on Cucumber under naturally ventilated Poly house condition. The experiment was laid out in split plot design with three replications. The treatments comprised of four drip irrigation levels (0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0 ETc or crop evapotranspiration) assigned to main plots and three plant growth regulators viz; water spray, NAA or Naphthalene Acetic acid (100 ppm) and GA3 (50 ppm) assigned to sub plots. The objectives of this study were to find out the effects of irrigation levels as well as plant growth regulators on yield attributes of cucumber and their interactions. Results indicated that earliness i.e. days to first flowering (35.40) and first harvest (52.00) were recorded maximum with 1.0 ETc as compared to other irrigation levels. The same treatment (1.0 ETc) significantly gave maximum fruit length (21.07 cm), number of fruits per vine (12.02), fruit weight (103.29 g), fruit yield (728.76 q ha-1) and net returns (765035.9 ha-1) with B:C ratio (2.46). However, water use efficiency (3.61 q ha-1 cm-1) was found maximum with 0.4 ETc. Among various plant growth regulators GA3 (50 ppm) recorded significantly higher yield attributes namely fruit length (21.63 cm), number of fruits per vine (12.34), fruit weight (99.48 g) and fruit yield (729.23 q ha-1). Water use efficiency, net returns and B:C ratio also exhibited higher values (2.57 q ha-1 cm-1, 765307.7ha-1 and 2.46, respectively) with same treatment. Similarly, earliness i.e. days to first flowering (34.19) and days to first harvest (50.70) were recorded with GA3. The treatment combination 0.8 ETc + GA3 (50 ppm) gave maximum value for fruit yield (793.93 q ha-1) per hectare.