Influence of mulches on yield and quality of Strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa Duch.) cv. Chandler

Abstract

The quality of strawberry is highly hampered by improper crop management, which can only be solved by using different types of mulches. It is very rare in literature, where the different types of mulches are used for the quality assessment. To carry out this new strategy to sustain the quality of strawberry the present study was carried out using various kind of mulches viz., white polythene mulch, yellow polythene mulch, black polythene much, green polythene mulch, news-paper mulch, wood husk mulch, serpat grass mulch, red polythene mulch, jute bag mulch comprised of 10 treatments and 3 replications under the randomized block design. The findings revealed that the application of black plastic mulch significantly increased the total number of fruit (12.67), length of fruit (6.21 cm), width of fruit (4.20 cm), weight of fruit (16.30 g), yield plant-1 (200.10g), yield plot-1 (3.20kg), total soluble solids (11.85%), total sugar (8.58%), reducing sugar (7.90%), non-reducing sugar (1.75%) and vitamin C (45.91 mg 100g-1). It is pertinent to infer that the application of the mulches (either black or yellow) performed and better over control.