Assessing the Effect of Recycling of Cotton Stalks on Yield and Yield Attributes of Cotton under Dry Farming Condition

Cotton is one of the important commercial crop. India is the largest producer of cotton in the world
having an area of 120 lakh hectares and 365 lakh bales of production. An experiment was under
taken on “Effect of recycling of cotton stalks on yield and yield attributes of cotton under dry farming
condition” on medium black clayey soil at Dry Farming Research Station, Junagadh Agricultural
University, Targhadia (Rajkot) during Kharif 2017-19. The experiment was laid out in strip plot design
with three replications. The experiment consist of five main plot treatments viz.; S1- Removal of cotton
stalks from plot, S2- Surface burning of cotton stalks, S3- Incorporation of cotton stalks using rotavator,
S4- Incorporation cotton stalks using mobile chopper and S5- Ex-situ composting of cotton stalks using
shredder and three sub plot treatments viz.; D1- One irrigation for decomposting, D2- One irrigation +
addition of N @10 kg/ha through urea + compost culture @ 5 kg/ha, D3 - Addition of N@ 10 kg/ha
through urea + compost culture @ 5 kg/ha at sowing, thus, fifteen treatment combinations. The stalks
management practice S5 (Ex-situ composting of cotton stalks using shredder) recorded maximum
seed cotton yield (1875 kg/ha). Whereas, effect of decomposting practices on yield attributes and
seed cotton yield was found non-significant. However, the maximum seed cotton yield (1823 kg/ha)
was recorded under de-composting practice D1 (one irrigation for de-composting). The effect of decomposting
practices on seed cotton yield was found non-significant. The stalks management practice
S5 (ex-situ composting of cotton stalks using shredder) and decomposting practice D1 (one irrigation
for decomposting) gave maximum seed cotton yield.