Effect of trash mulching and nitrogen application on growth and yield of sugarcane ratoon

A field experiment was conducted at Crop Research Centre of the Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, during 1995 98, to study the effect of mulching (no mulch and trash mulch Q 6 tonneslha) and nitrogen doses (0, 75, 112.5, 150 and 187.5 kg Nlha) on growth and yield of sugarcane ratoon un der foot hill conditions of Uttaranchal. Trash mulching Q 6 tonneslha led to marginal improvement in shoot popu lation, shoot height, shoot dry matter, cane length, cane girth and cane yield over no mulching. Individual cane weight exhibited significant increase with trash mulching (767 g) compared with no mulch (740 g) during 1996 97. Respective increase during 1997 98 was from 724 to 751 g. Improvement in yield attributes resulted in 3.2 and 5.8% increase in cane yield during the 2 seasons. All the growth parameters and yield attributes exhibited an in creasing trend with increasing N level up to 187.5 kglha. Crop fertilized with 187.5 kg Nlha gave 4.5, 13.4, 21.0 and 43.1 % more cane yield than that of 150, 1 12.5, 75 and 0 kg Nlha respectively.