Asian Jr. of Microbiol. Biotech. Env. Sc. Vol. 24, No. (2) : 2022 : 398-401 © Global Science Publications ISSN-0972-3005 INFLUENCE OF DRIP FERTIGATION ON QUALITY AND YIELD PARAMETERS OF MANGO (MANGIFERA INDICA) K.V. RAMANA RAO*, SUCHI GANGWAR, KUMAR SONI AND DEEPIKA YADAV ICAR-Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal, M.P., India (Received 15 February, 2022; Accepted 30 March, 2022) Key words: Drip irrigation, economics, fertigation, growth parameters, quality, mango Abstract– A study was conducted at ICAR-Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal during 2011 to 2018 to find out the effect of irrigation and fertigation scheduling on the growth, yield and quality of mango (cv. Amrapali). The results revealed that the maximum plant height (1.94 m), circumference of rootstock (63.7 cm) and scion were higher under 100% irrigation level whereas maximum yield (35.82 kg plant -1 and 12.22 t ha -1 ) was obtained under 100% irrigation with 100% fertigation. Fruit weight, gross returns and benefit cost ratio were found higher (Rs. 231 g, 71,640 ha -1 and 1.49 respectively) under hundred per cent irrigation and hundred per cent fertigation treatment. However, the TSS of the fruit was not affected significantly due to irrigation and fertigation as well as their interaction effect. The study recommends for the adoption of drip treatment of 100 % irrigation and 100% fertigation for techno-economic advantage. INTRODUCTION India stands first in the global mango production with a total production of 213 lakh tonnes with maximum area covered in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh (Ganeshmurthy et al., 2018). The best growing environment for mango crop is under tropical and subtropical conditions. For enhancing its productivity, water and plant nutrients are the two key inputs. Mango can be cultivated under rainfed conditions however,deficit or excess rainfall will severely influence the crop production. In black soils due to poor permeability of soils excess water leading to reduction in crop production is a common problem. Apart from this, the calcareous nature of black soils severely hampers the nutrient availability to the plants (Biswas and Lalit, 2012). On the other hand, the ground water withdrawal is increasing very rapidly in India. It is a known fact that the predominant user of available water is agriculture sector. To minimize the wastage of water in agriculture sector, the scientific methods of water application systems such as micro irrigation is the game changer for better on-farm water management practices. These systems are being adopted in mostly in horticultural crops and of late in field crops such as sugarcane, cotton, wheat, chickpea etc. (Gandhi et al., 2021). The research findings and benefits reaped by the farmers clearly indicates the advantage of adopting micro irrigation systems for higher water productivity, enhanced fertilizer use efficiency, reduced energy, reduced labour etc. The average penetration rate of micro irrigation in India is about 19 per cent. Drip irrigation along with fertilizer application has proven to be more advantageous interms of costly input saving apart from enhanced nutrient use efficiency (Rao et al., 2017). It is therefore, the present study was taken up with the objective to investigate the influence of drip irrigation and fertigation levels on mango quality and yield. MATERIALS AND METHODS The experiments were laid out in the year 2011 at research farm of Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal with factorial randomized block design having six treatment combinations which include three irrigation level (100, 80 and 60%) along with two fertigation level (100 and 75% water soluble fertilizers) and replicated thrice. Each replication consisted of five mango plants. Water soluble fertilizers urea phosphate (17:44:00), urea (46:00:00) and sulphate of potash (00:00:50) were used for fertigation and applied weekly by adopting DOI No.: http://doi.org/10.53550/AJMBES.2022.v24i02.032