Soil mulching effects on growth and yield of cowpea following rice in the post - monsoon season of Northeastern Thailand

摘要

The experiment was conducted in a farmer's field, Ban Fang district, Khon Kaen province in 1900-2000. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of soil mulching on growth and yield of cowpea following rice in the post-monsoon seasonof Northeastern Thailand. A split plot design was used with mulching and non-mulching as main-plots and cowpea cultivars as sub-plots. Growth and yield of cowpea were affected by soil mulching. Application of mulch increased average seed yield of cowpeaby 42 percent due to the ability of mulched plots to store more soil moisture during thegrowing season. There was no significant seed yield variation among cowpea cultivars. However, the KKU 96D (medium, semi-indeterminate) tended to produce higher seed yield than the KKU 305 and KKU 60-2 (early, determinate), respectively. There was an interaction effect for mulching X cowpea cultivar on the seed yield of cowpea. A greater decrease in the seed yield for KKU 60-2 cultivar in unmulched plots was found.