Die Bodenkultur - Journal for Land Management, Food and Environment

N. Schahbazian and H. Iran-Nejad:

The effects of different mulch types and irrigation intervals on cotton yield

Summary

Sustaining the agricultural systems need to increase resource use efficiency, especially water resources in arid and semiarid regions. In order to evaluate the effects of different mulch types and irrigation intervals on germination rate and total yield of cotton an experiment was conducted with four types of mulches (consisted of water absorbent chemical polymers, manure, chaff and polyethylene) and two irrigation intervals (7 and 14 days).The results indicated highest values of cotton yield and seed germination percentage for polyethylene and chaff mulches, respectively, but differences between control treatment and water absorbent mulch (as lowest values) were not significant for any studied traits. Our final results showed chaff manures are more suitable, because of availability, cost, and labor and biodegradability considerations. Key words: mulch, residue, polyethylene, aquasorb polymer, RCBD.