Organic Mulches and Green Manuring on Maize

A field experiment was conducted at Department of Agricultural Engineering, UAS, GKVK, Bengaluru during kharif 2017, to study the ¿Effect of organic mulches and green manuring on soil moisture conservation, infiltration, growth and yield of maize (Zea mays L.) in Alfisols¿. The experiment was laid out in RCBD comprising nine treatments replicated thrice. Growing sunhemp in between maize rows as intercrop and incorporating as insitu green manuring resulted in better soil moisture content at 60, 75, 90 DAS and at harvest at 0 -15 and 15- 30 cm depth. The soil temperature at 5 and 10 cm depth recorded lower in the same treatment. After harvest, the higher infiltration rate (5.80 cm hr-1) lower bulk density (1.42 g cc-1), higher water holding capacity (47.51%), pH (6.42), higher soil organic carbon (0.46%), available nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium (227, 28.67 and 133.78 kg ha-1) was recorded. Also growing sunhemp in between maize rows as intercrop and incorporating as insitu green manuring resulted in better plant growth, yield and yield components. The highest gross returns (Rs.77991) net returns (Rs. 51088) and B:C ratio (2.90) was noticed under sunhemp insitu green manuring.