**4.1. Application for mulching application**

Efficient management of soil moisture by jute needle-punched nonwoven for cultivation of horticultural crops in red lateritic zone has been attempted at West Medinapur District of West Bengal, India. The experiments on vegetable cultivation were laid out in randomized block design (RBD) with three vegetables – cauliflower, tomato, and beans – and four types of jute nonwoven mulch of fabric densities 150 g/m2 , 200 g/m2 , 250 g/m2 , and 300 g/m2 excluding control. There is evidence that mulching with jute geotextiles increased the yield of cauliflower substantially and that of tomato to a lesser extent. It had practically insignificant effect in the yield of beans. Maximum yield of 73.66 t/ha of cauliflower was obtained with jute nonwoven fabric of 250 g/m2 (control 49.08 t/ha) whereas tomato's increased yield was 110.39 t/ha with 150 g/m2 fabric as compared to 83.39 t/ha achieved under controlled conditions. However, beans had negative effect with mulching by jute nonwoven. The results also confirm that mulching with jute nonwoven of 300 g/m2 fabric density increased the yield of sweet lime fruits substantially, that is, more than 100 fruits per plant per year as compared to only 34 fruits per plant per year obtained under traditional cultivation method [27-28].

Nonwoven fabric samples were selected as mulch materials at the experimental field of tea plantation, situated at Gopali village (near IIT, Kharagpur, West Bengal). In the first phase, these fabric samples were laid in between the two rows of tea plants (Tocklai of Assam variety) where the spacing between the two rows was 1 metre and between the two plants in a row was 0.7 metre. The length of each row was 16 metres. For each sample two rows were used for mulching experiment. Jute nonwoven samples (150, 200, and 250 g/m2 ) each of 32 metres in length were used for the continuous row mulching process. Two separate rows were kept for control/without any mulching material. Uniform amount of water was spread over the tea plantation in both the control and mulched area using standard sprinkler at the rate of 5hours/ day. The mulch performance was studied by measuring the biomass in 2-month intervals. Some critical observations regarding the types of weeds grown were also reported. This experiment was replicated five times for test of significance.
