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Experiment Background
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Cucumber (Cucumis sativus) is grown mainly for its fruits both in India and abroad. The fruit of cucumber is said to have cooling effect, prevent constipation, checks jaundice and indigestion. Besides, the seed of cucumber is used in Ayurvedic preparations and raw fruits are also being used in cosmetic preparations. It is reported that oil extracted from seed is good for brain and body (Shanmugauelu, 1989). Nutritively 100 g edible portion of cucumber contains 96.3 g moisture, 2.5 g carbohydrates, 0.4 g protein, 0.1 g fat, 0.3 g minerals, 10 mg calcium, 0.4 g fiber and traces of vitamin C and iron. It is eaten raw with salt and bell pepper or as a component of salad and pickles.
Mulching is a practice of covering the surface of soil with plastics, organic and non-organic materials to reduce evaporation and moderate wide fluctuation in diurnal soil temperature, especially in the root zone environment. There are different types of mulch used in the field depending on the purpose. Mulches are used to regulate the soil temperature, protect the root of a plant from heat, check evaporation, conserve soil moisture, suppress weed growth, increase water use efficiency and modify the soil micro climate. Mulches reduce weed growth by making conditions unfavorable for germination of weed seeds and by providing a physical barrier for emerging weeds. A good mulch layer can save many hours of laborious weeding.
The use of plastic mulch has brought a considerable change in vegetable production in many countries. In temperate countries, the year-round production of vegetables has been possible with the use of plastic mulches. The growing period of crops with a tropical origin have also been extended (Lamont, 1991). Plant growth performance and yields of various vegetable crops such as okra (Gordon et al., 2010, tomato (Agrawal et al., 2010), watermelon (Rao et al., 2017), chilli (Ashrafuzzaman et al., 2011), summer squash (Kumar and Sharma, 2018), watermelon (Dadheech et al., 2018) can be significantly improved by mulching.
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Treatment
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T1 = Black polyethylene mulch (25 micron)
T2 = Black polyethylene mulch (50 micron)
T3 = Silver polyethylene mulch (25 micron)
T4 = Silver polythene mulch (50 micron)
T5 = Red polythene mulch (25 micron)
T6 = Red polythene mulch (50 micron)
T7 = White polythene mulch (25 micron)
T8 = White polythene mulch (50 micron)
T9 = Control
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