106 Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare Mill.) plant is a stout, aromatic annual herb which belongs to family Apiaceae. The plant is pleasantly aromatic and each of the part (leaves, stalks, bulbs and seeds) is edible. The seeds contain about 9.5% protein, 10.0% fat, 42.3% carbohydrates, 18.5% fibre and 13.4% minerals (Bhunia et al. 2005). Further, the seeds contain about 0.7% to 6.0% volatile oil depending on the genotypes or botanical types. Water resources have become scarce, especially in the arid and semi-arid areas of Rajasthan. In such areas, instead of intensive irrigation over a limited area, the right approach would be to apply irrigation to maximum area with reduced irrigation intensity in order to increase the overall production and water use efficiency. This can be ensured by irrigating the crop at phenological stages of growth. In order to mitigate the adverse effects of water stress, efficient conservation of rain/irrigation water is of utmost importance. One of the common practices to reduce evaporation loss from the soil and prolonging the availability of moisture to the crop is the use of mulches. Mulching increases soil moisture, regulates soil temperature, suppresses weed growth, checks excessive evaporation, reduces soil erosion and improves production and quality. Keeping this in view, the present investigation was undertaken to find out the effect of irrigation and mulching practices on productivity of fennel. Response of fennel ( Foeniculum vulgare) to irrigation and mulching M Meena, L R Yadav*, S S Yadav, O P Sharma, G L Choudhary & P Choudhary S.K.N. College of Agriculture SK Rajasthan Agricultural University, Jobner-303 329, Rajasthan. *E-mail: lalaram69@gmail.com Received 15 March 2013; Revised 31 May 2013; Accepted 13 December 2013 Abstract A field experiment was conducted to find out the effect of irrigation levels and mulching on performance of fennel. Results indicated that application of six irrigations significantly increased the plant height, number of branches plant -1 , total chlorophyll content, dry matter accumulation per metre row length, number of umbels plant -1 , umbellets umbel -1 , seeds umbellet -1 as well as seed, stover and biological yield of fennel compared to four and five irrigations. However, it remained at par with seven irrigations. Results further revealed that application of straw mulch significantly increased number of branches plant -1 , dry matter accumulation per metre row length, number of umbellets umbel -1 and yields (seed, stover and biological) over control, dust and plastic mulches. Plant height and number of umbels plant -1 increased significantly with straw mulch as compared to control and dust mulch, but remained at par with plastic mulch. However, in respect of number of seeds umbellet -1 , straw, plastic and dust mulch gave similar results. Keywords: dust mulch, fennel, irrigation, plastic mulch, seed yield, straw mulch Journal of Spices and Aromatic Crops Vol. 23 (1) : 106–109 (2014) Indian Society for Spices www.indianspicesociety.in/josac/index.php/josac