Effect of lime and organic manures on yield and quality of tomato and capsicum grown under protected condition in the mid-hills of Meghalaya

Abstract

Among the vegetable crops, tomato and capsicum are the major crops grown under protected cultivation. Due to high rainfall, the soil of north eastern region of India is acidic in nature and deficient in essential nutrients such as calcium and magnesium by leaching and phosphorous by fixation. Therefore, productivity and quality of the produce is very poor. The mild weather of the north eastern region provides a better option for year-round production of these crops under protected conditions to get the good market price with higher yield and superior quality. With this background, a field experiment was conducted for consecutive two years (2011-2013) to study the effect of lime and organic manures with fertilizers on growth, yield and quality attributes in tomato and capsicum grown under low cost polyhouse with the objective to develop the suitable integrated nutrient management package for tomato - capsicum cropping sequence under protected condition. The highest yield and good quality fruits of tomato (72.6 t/ha) and capsicum (45.80 t/ha) was recorded with the application of NPK (60:60:60 kg/ ha) + vermicompost (5 t/ha) + lime (2.5 q/ha) in tomato and 60:60:60 (kg/ha) NPK + vermicompost (5 t/ha) in capsicum. However, from economic analysis of cropping sequence, the highest net income (¹ 13, 91,871 / ha), and BC ratio (2.7) was recorded from the treatment comprises of NPK (60:60:60 kg/ha) + vermicompost (5t/ha) + lime followed by NPK (60:60:60 kg/ha) + pig manure (10t/ha) + lime. Hence, application of lime and vermicompost with fertilizers could be a suitable INM practices to get the maximum output in terms of yield and quality