Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 42 views

    9 Mulching

    Uploaded by

    Cute Guardian Angel
    Mulching is a practice of covering the soil surface with materials like manure, straw, or plastic sheets. This helps reduce moisture loss from the soil, controls weeds, and moderates soil temperature fluctuations. Mulches serve various purposes like sustaining soil fertility, protecting the soil from erosion, and helping produce higher crop yields. Organic mulches include materials like compost, crop residues, sawdust, and grass clippings. Non-organic mulches include polyethylene sheets and aluminum foil. Selection of the right mulch depends on factors like its nitrogen content and potential impacts on crops and soil properties. While mulching provides benefits, it also has disadvantages such as high costs for large-scale use and issues

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    9 Mulching

    Uploaded by

    Cute Guardian Angel
    42 views4 pages
    Mulching is a practice of covering the soil surface with materials like manure, straw, or plastic sheets. This helps reduce moisture loss from the soil, controls weeds, and moderates soil temperature fluctuations. Mulches serve various purposes like sustaining soil fertility, protecting the soil from erosion, and helping produce higher crop yields. Organic mulches include materials like compost, crop residues, sawdust, and grass clippings. Non-organic mulches include polyethylene sheets and aluminum foil. Selection of the right mulch depends on factors like its nitrogen content and potential impacts on crops and soil properties. While mulching provides benefits, it also has disadvantages such as high costs for large-scale use and issues

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Mulching is a practice of covering the soil surface with materials like manure, straw, or plastic sheets. This helps reduce moisture loss from the soil, controls weeds, and moderates soil temperature fluctuations. Mulches serve various purposes like sustaining soil fertility, protecting the soil from erosion, and helping produce higher crop yields. Organic mulches include materials like compost, crop residues, sawdust, and grass clippings. Non-organic mulches include polyethylene sheets and aluminum foil. Selection of the right mulch depends on factors like its nitrogen content and potential impacts on crops and soil properties. While mulching provides benefits, it also has disadvantages such as high costs for large-scale use and issues

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    42 views4 pages

    9 Mulching

    Uploaded by

    Cute Guardian Angel
    Mulching is a practice of covering the soil surface with materials like manure, straw, or plastic sheets. This helps reduce moisture loss from the soil, controls weeds, and moderates soil temperature fluctuations. Mulches serve various purposes like sustaining soil fertility, protecting the soil from erosion, and helping produce higher crop yields. Organic mulches include materials like compost, crop residues, sawdust, and grass clippings. Non-organic mulches include polyethylene sheets and aluminum foil. Selection of the right mulch depends on factors like its nitrogen content and potential impacts on crops and soil properties. While mulching provides benefits, it also has disadvantages such as high costs for large-scale use and issues

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    You are on page 1of 4

    Sustainable Agriculture

    (Agri 107)

    CHAPTER III. SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES (Soil Related)

    Mulching

    Mulching is one of the potential protected cultivation approaches to serve this purpose. It is
    a protective ground cover that can include manure, saw dust, seaweed, litter, stubbles,
    sands, pebbles, plastics, and other natural products. While the term mulching is a practice of
    covering the surface of soil with these materials to reduce moisture loss, and to balance
    wide variations in diurnal soil temperatures, especially in the root zone. It controls
    evaporation losses and minimized energy supply to the evaporating site by cutting off solar
    radiation falling on the ground. Major function of mulching is to limit first stage of drying
    which helps in optimum moisture status, reduced soil temperature, also containing seedling
    mortality and improving crop stand. It also subdues weed-flora and lessens weed
    competition with crop for water and nutrients making them available in larger amounts for
    crop plants. In addition, mulching helps in improving downward movement of water.

    Mulch is used for various purposes:

    1. To sustain the fertility of soil.


    2. To protect the soil from water and wind erosion.
    3. To preserves the soil moisture.
    4. To accent landscape plantings.
    5. To provide a “finished” look to the garden.
    6. To help in production of clean and quality products.
    7. To protect the plant and their produce from attack of insect-pest and diseases.
    8. To moderate the soil thermal regime throughout the cropping season.
    9. To prevent weed growth.
    10. Increasing overall crop production

    Types of mulches

    Mulches are basically classified in two types viz., organic and non-organic mulches (Fig. 1).
    The important mulching materials essentially used in crop production are explained below:

    1. Organic mulches

    1.1. Compost/Manure/peat

    These mulching materials are laid in 2” – 3” thick layer over crop or soil surfaces and used
    commonly for attractive appearance. Manure needed be well decomposed before laying,
    otherwise they may damage the crops. These type of mulching materials are generally used
    for kitchen and home gardens. Besides, mulching these materials will improve soil fertility
    through increasing organic carbon status. It is frequently free of weed seeds and cost
    effective. The raw materials for compost or manure are easily available from commercial

    1
    CSU-CAA Supplemental Lecture Notes | Agri 107, Rev. 0, 06-01-20
    producers or homeowners. One can produce compost from the raw materials available in
    his yard. There is no compulsion of purchasing expensive raw materials for mulching.

    1.2. Crop residue mulching

    These mulching materials are easy to handle. To make the crop residues considerable
    chopping is required. Therefore, these should be applied in thin layers (only to a 3 inch or
    less depth) and recommended for drought prone areas. Moreover, these materials are
    prone to micro-fauna which make theme desirable for medium duration crops.

    Grass clippings also are very effective mulches and can be used directly from the lawn
    mower. These mulching materials need to be applied in thick layers (4 to 6 inches). If the
    layers are very thick, they hinder the air penetration to the bottom and may cause smelly
    rotten material. It such situation it may not useful as soil conditioner. However, these are
    the one of the most easily available mulch materials, undervalued mainly because of
    people’s experience with smell rotting masses when clippings are continually dumped in
    thick layers. It is recommended that not to use clipping from lawn treated with herbicides.

    Fig. 1: Grass clipping and straw mulching in cucurbits cultivation (Source: Oliver 2020)

    1.3. Sawdust

    Partially decomposed sawdust are the important mulch materials which stays for long time.
    It contains high amount of carbon and nitrogen and prone to caking. Due to high C:N ratio
    and nutrient status it takes time to breakdown. It must not be used as mulch until its proper
    decomposition into brown ‘soil’ and worms are found in it. Softwood sawdust required
    more time to decompose than hardwoods. To make the decomposition faster, nitrogen may
    be added externally to sawdust and spread it two inches deep on the soil.

    1.4. News paper

    Sheets of newspaper are used to cover lightly with grass clippings or other mulch material to
    anchor. The main disadvantages of these mulch materials is they are easily blow away and

    2
    CSU-CAA Supplemental Lecture Notes | Agri 107, Rev. 0, 06-01-20
    once get damp are easily broken up or penetrated by weeds. However, these mulch
    materials are chlorine-free and there is no risk of lead from the ink.

    2. Non-organic mulches

    2.1. Polyethylene mulches

    Non-organic mulches generally lack the soil improving properties particularly to


    improvement in soil particle aggregation, structure formation and regulation of soil
    reactions. Amidst the different inorganic mulch materials, the use of these mulches is most
    preferred owing to their properties of regulating the hydrothermal regimes of microclimate
    of crops, positive response on weed control, protect soil from dryness and crusting, control
    soil moisture by checking evaporation from surface, protect surface soil from erosion and
    reduce nutrient loss.

    2.2. Aluminum-coated plastic and foil

    Use of these mulching materials mainly confined to vegetable crops. They also reduce insect
    pests, viz., aphids and viruses in vegetable crops. The single layer of the mulching provides
    excellent weed control. However, they are very expensive and quite unpopular.

    Fig. 2: Polyethylene cultivation in tuberose cultivation

    Selection of organic mulches

     Undecomposed or partially decomposed mulch material should not have a


    nitrogenase activity after the application of mulch.
     Should not have any antagonistic effect on the crop.
     It should be free from the attack of insects/pests particularly termites and
    diseases.
     Determination of mulch depth and identification of plant for moisture and
    oxygen tolerance are the two important steps in organic mulching.

    3
    CSU-CAA Supplemental Lecture Notes | Agri 107, Rev. 0, 06-01-20
    Precautions for using organic mulch

    (i) Weeding must be done before spreading mulch.


    (ii) Soil pH must be monitored periodically.
    (iii) Restricting fungal attacks.

    Disadvantages of mulching

    Mulches do have a few drawbacks, which are as follows:

     Large scale mulching is cost intensive.


     Availability of mulching materials.
     Use of high C:N mulching materials viz.,saw dust, straw results in temporary
    immobilization or starvation for nutrients in crops.
     Change in the soil reaction due to continuous use of same mulching material.
     Application of top-dressed fertilizers is difficult.
     Biodegradability of plastic materials
     Organic mulches may harbor termites,needs frequent irrigation and spray of
    termiticides.
     Some of the organic mulches have allelopathic effects on crops.

    4
    CSU-CAA Supplemental Lecture Notes | Agri 107, Rev. 0, 06-01-20

    You might also like