AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATION CENTRE www.arccjournals.com *Corresponding author’s e-mail: rupali_flori@rediffmail.com Effect of mulching on soil and water conservation -A review Rupali Sharma* and Sandeep Bhardwaj Department of Horticulture, COA, Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar-125 004, Haryana, India. Received: 27-05-2017 Accepted: 12-10-2017 DOI: 10.18805/ag.R-1732 ABSTRACT The need to increase food production and improve the quality of our environment has prompted a search for materials to control wind and water erosion. This paper is a review of research and development associated with application, methods, and amounts of mulch types-crop residues, chemical soil stabilizers, and feedlot wastes (manure)-required to control wind erosion. An effective wind erosion control treatment is one that can resist a 38.0 m/s wind as measured at 15.2 m. Mulching has becomes an important practice in modern field production. Mulch paper reduces the application of chemical fertilizer and herbicide, weed control and maintain the land temperature. This article reviews the published research on mulches and discusses the opportunities that they solving the problem in agriculture. Key words: Conservation, Mulching, Plastic mulch, Soil properties, Weeds. India has made immense development in agriculture and food security. It began with the decision to adopt superior yielding, disease resistant wheat varieties in combination with better farming knowledge to improve productivity. Development of irrigation schemes, copious use of fertilizers and pesticides, use of high yielding varieties made the green revolution possible. The word mulch has been probably derived from the German word “molsch” means soft to decay, which apparently referred to the use of straw and leaves by gardeners as a spread over the ground as mulch (Jacks et al., 1955). Mulches are used for various reasons in agriculture but water conservation and erosion control are the most important objectives particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. Mulching is the process or practice of covering the soil/ground to make more favourable conditions for plant growth, development and efficient crop production. Mulch technical term means ‘covering of soil’. While natural mulches such as leaf, straw, dead leaves and compost have been used for centuries, during the last 60 years the advent of synthetic materials has altered the methods and benefits of mulching. The research as well as field data available on effect of synthetic mulches make a vast volume of useful literature. When compared to other mulches plastic mulches are completely impermeable to water; it therefore prevents direct evaporation of moisture from the soil and thus limits the water losses and soil erosion over the surface. In this manner it plays a positive role in water conservation. The suppression of evaporation also has a supplementary effect; it prevents the rise of water containing salt, which is important in countries with high salt content water resources. Thus, it facilitates more retention of soil moisture and helps in control of temperature fluctuations, improves physical, chemical and biological properties of soil, as it adds nutrients to the soil and ultimately enhances the growth and yield of crops (Dilip Kumar et al., 1990). In addition mulch can effectively minimize water vapour loss, soil erosion, weed problems and nutrient loss (Van Derwerken and Wilcox, 1988). Mulching in improve soil health: Knowledge of the physical properties of soil is essential for defining and/or improving soil health to achieve optimal productivity for each soil/climatic condition. This envisages that for increasing crop production, soil must be maintained in such a physical condition so as to allow adequate crop growth. Unless the soil physical environment is maintained at its optimum level, the genetic yield potential of a crop cannot be realized even when all the other requirements are fulfilled. No doubt, if these soils are managed properly for good physical health, the yield potential of different crops can be increased significantly. Soil temperature: Soil temperature under plastic film is usually high and also it is based on the color of the plastic mulches. The black plastic-film mulched plots had significantly lower soil temperature (1 to 2.80 C) than the clear plastic-film mulched plots. Because much of the solar energy absorbed by black plastic-film mulch is lost to the atmosphere through radiation and forced convection (Schales and Sheldrake,1963). Anikwe et al., (2007) observed that the unmulched plots had the lowest soil temperature (about 1-3.80 C lower) at different times since planting compared to plastic film mulched plots. Among different mulching techniques plastic film mulching increases soil surface temperature by influencing the heat balance and thus increased the soil temperature and it also positively influenced the crop emergence (Aniekwe et al., 2004). Agricultural Reviews, 38(4) 2017 : 311-315 Print ISSN:0253-1496 / Online ISSN:0976-0539