Abstract

Field experiment was carried out at the Teaching Farm of Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, West Bengal during 2008–10. The aim of the study was to assess the growth, yield and nutrient uptake of banana [var. Martaman (AAB, Silk)] under drip fertigation method. The experiment was laid out in augmented factorial complete block design with four replications. Main factor was irrigation at three levels (I1=50% CPE, I2=60% CPE and I3=70% CPE), sub-factor was fertilizer at three levels (F1=50% RDF, F2=60% RDF and F3=80% RDF) and control was augmented in four replications. Experimental results revealed that the nitrogen content on the basis of percentage dry weight of banana leaf was highest in 70% levels of irrigation, particularly in ratoon crop than plant crop in all the stages of growth except harvesting stage. Similarly, 80% level of fertilizer contributed higher nitrogen content in different growth stages. Similar trend was also found in case of phosphorus levels. The 80% levels of fertilizer got the highest phosphorus content of leaf and 50% gave the lowest value in all the crop growth stages. The potassium content of the leaf followed the similar trend to that of nitrogen content under both irrigation and fertilizer treatments. The results indicate that the banana yield attributing characters and yield were significantly influenced by the different treatments and were superior in plants under drip fertigation compared to those under conventional irrigation. Combined application of irrigation at 60% CPE and 80% RDF yielded significantly higher 49.2 and 44.1 t/ha for plant and ratoon crop, respectively, accompanied by higher water use efficiency resulting in considerable saving of water (41.7 and 40.4% for plant crop and ratoon crop, respectively). Highest fruit yield increase over the conventional irrigation method was obtained for the plant crop (32.5%) and ratoon crop (26.4%) with the same treatment of drip fertigation.