Mulching provides favourable environment for crop with multiple advantages including better crop yields. An experiment was conducted in a farmer’s field at village Srichandrapur of Birbhum district, West Bengal during rabi season of 2022 and 2023 to study the comparative performance of jute non-woven mulch, straw and polythene mulch in improving growth and productivity of broccoli. Seven mulching treatments namely Jute non-woven mulch (250 gsm) (T1); Jute non-woven mulch (450 gsm) (T2); Straw

mulch @ 3.5 t/ha (T3); Straw mulch @ 4.0 t/ha (T4); Polythene mulch (25 micron) (T5); Polythene mulch (50 micron) (T6) and Control- no mulch (T7) were assigned in a randomised block design replicated thrice. Experimental findings revealed that both the Jute non-woven mulch (T2, T1) and Polythene mulch (50 micron) (T6) registered higher values of growth attributing factors like plant height, leaf area, number of leaves per plant over control plot and curd fresh weight of Broccoli during both the years. All the mulching treatments significantly reduced the total weed density and total weed dry weight over no mulch. However, T1 and T2 were found more efficient which registered 89.24 and 90.6% lower weed density, 93.69 and 94.38% lower weed dry weight and 42.52 and 44.68% higher fresh weight of broccoli in 2022 and 2023, respectively. Though Jute non-woven mulch fetched higher gross return but net return and return per rupee invested were lower as compared to other mulch materials.

Highlights

• To increase the production per unit area, the use of mulch is one of the suitable methods.
• Mulches are used to control soil temperature, safe guard plant roots from heat, prevent soil evaporation, retain soil moisture, prevent weed growth, improve water use efficiency and affect the microclimate of the soil.
• Non-woven jute mulch of 450 gsm, and non-woven jute mulch of 250 gsm was superior compared to rice straw and polythene mulches in increasing yield and growth of broccoli, suppressing weeds, increasing moisture and available N, P and K contents and microbial population of the lateritic soil.