Effect of Fertigation Using Different Rates and Sources of Fertilizers on Growth and Yield of Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) Under Open Field Condition

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted to study the effect of fertigation on the performance of cucumber variety ‘Vani’ at ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru during summer of 2015 and 2016. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design with three replications and consisted of ten treatments, which included different doses, sources of fertilizers and its frequency of application.  The pooled analysis of two years data revealed that the application of fertilizer dose (75:56:75 kg N:P2O5:K2O ha-1) through fertigation using water soluble fertilizers on bi-weekly basis resulted in higher values for vine length (217.50 cm), leaves vine-1 (83.50), mean leaf area (167.67 cm2) and mean dry leaf weight (0.532 g) at 50 days after transplanting, which remained on par with the same dose and source applied at weekly interval. These two treatments i.e T3 and T7 recorded higher values for the number of fruits vine-1 (14.20 and 14.00), fruit length (19.75 and 20.75 cm), fruit girth (16.97 and 16.12 cm) and fruit weight (313.17 and 306.05 g). All the fertigation treatments recorded higher yields over the conventional soil application of fertilizers to the tune of 10.75 to 45.60 per cent. Among the fertigation treatments, application of 100 per cent of fertilizer dose using water soluble fertilizers at weekly interval resulted in  significantly higher yield (69.50 t ha-1) compared to all  treatments except the treatment where the bi-weekly application of  the same dose of fertilizer through the same sources (69.20 t ha-1) was done. Application of 100 per cent fertilizer dose using water soluble fertilizers at weekly interval is the most efficient treatment for achieving economical cucumber fruit yield, economic return and saving water and mineral fertilizers.