Anish Sapkota^1,, Sanjok Poudel¹, Udaya Subedi¹, Ruchi Shrivastav¹, Janma Jaya Gairhe², Subodh Khanal², Keshab Raj Pande³

A research was carried to identify the production performance of catch crop cowpea at subtropical climatic condition of Nepal (Rupandehi) during dry to wet season transition period April to July 2014 using 6 different treatments with 4 replications in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD). Significant result at 5% level of probability with moisture retention of 14.463% in case of mulching and 12.970% in case of no mulched was observed. Similarly highly significant (at 1% level of probability) result was found for plant height at 13 days after sowing with plant height of 17.498cm in case of mulching and 14.459cm in case of no mulching. The result shows highly significant result for effect of mulching in cowpea yield <at p ≤ 0.05> yielding 5.706 ton/ha in mulched field and 4.215 ton/ha in no mulched field. Effect of mulching shows significant result at 5% level of probability in case of pod length. The length of pod recorded in mulched plot was found to be 43.651 cm and 39.531 cm in no mulched plot. Similarly, significant results (at p ≤ 0.05) in interaction of both mulching and recommended doses of phosphorous shows maximum pod length recorded of 46.920 cm and minimum of 38.497 cm when control dose of phosphorous interacted with no mulching condition. Since organic matter formation and change in soil chemical properties is long and gradual period no significant results are found in soil chemical properties. Significant results of phosphorous solely are not achieved during this short research duration. Data from economic analysis revealed that Mulching leads to significant high yield as compared to non-mulching with B: C ratio calculated 1.58 and 0.99 respectively in mulched and no mulched condition. Cowpea yield shows significant difference between mulching and no mulching effect and was successfully harvested within the short period. So it is beneficial to crop cowpea with mulching to have better yield of cowpea and aid soil nutrients during dry to wet transition season in Rice-Wheat cropping systems of Nepal.

cowpea yield, mulching, phosphorous, catch crop, B: C ratio