Influence of Fertigation Levels and Drip Irrigation on Yield and Quality of Summer Watermelon under with Mulch and without Mulch Conditions

A field trial was carried out during summer season at Water Technology Center fields, College Farm, PJTSAU, Hyderabad, Telangana to study the individual and combined effect of fertigation levels, mulch and drip irrigation levels on performance of watermelon for two consecutive years 2020-21 & 2021-22. The experiment consisted of 12 treatment combinations of three fertigation levels (F75, F100 & F125) & two drip irrigation levels (I0.8 & I1.0) imposed under factorial combination of with mulch (M1) and no mulch (M0). Among the fertigation levels, The F125 has recorded the highest fresh fruit yield (48.52 t ha-1), TSS (11.55 %) and lycopene content (0.68 mg 100 g-1 of sample) over F100 & F75 in the pooled data. Mulch has shown significant influence on fresh fruit yield and quality of watermelon. The M1 has registered higher fresh fruit yield (59.04 t ha-1), TSS (12.10 %) and lycopene content (0.76 mg 100 g-1 of sample) as compared to non-mulching treatment. On another hand drip irrigation levels did not shows significant effect on yield and quality of the watermelon during both the year (2020-21 and 2021-22).