*3.9.2. Contact method*

**3.8. Evaluation of water absorbency**

286 Non-woven Fabrics

The average of 10 results was considered.

**3.9. Evaluation of soil moisture control**

nonwoven fabrics [21].

*3.9.1. Non-contact method*

of different fabric weight.

The fabric samples were cut into equal size of 4 cm x 4 cm, and conditioning in the standard atmospheric condition of 65 ± 2% RH and 20 ± 2°C. The fabrics were conditioned for 24 hours in the above-mentioned atmospheric conditions and the dry weight (WD) was measured. To study the water absorbency, samples were dipped in distilled water for 24 hours to ensure uniform soaking of water and then wet samples were hung in free air for about 30 minutes to drip out the excess water absorbed by the samples. Now, the weight (WW) of wet samples was

> - = ´ ( ) (%) <sup>100</sup> *W D D*

*W*

The soil moisture can be efficiently controlled by the jute agro-textile. This is very essential to maintain the soil moisture for longer duration and thereby the water requirement during irrigation can be minimized. Suitable jute agro-textile can be used as mulching material. To find the efficacy of the performance of the jute-based mulching material for controlling the soil moisture, two simulated methods are recommended, namely, non-contact method and contact method. The importance of these two different methods is that during application of the agro-textile the fabrics are not assured to touch the contours of the soil surface uniform‐ ly both in lengthwise as well as widthwise directions of the fabrics. Following are the two methods recommend to measure the soil moisture control using jute needle-punched

Some place of the mulching needle-punched nonwoven agro-textile will not come in contact with the soil surface due to the contours of the soil. To study the moisture of soil on those noncontact areas of the fabric, this method is considered [21]. In this measurement, six beakers of 100 ml are taken containing 25 ml of water in each beaker. Among them, the mouths of five beakers are tightly covered with the fabric samples and the rest are kept as control without any fabric cover. These beakers containing water and samples were weighed initially and weights were repeatedly taken at certain time interval until they reached a constant weight. This experiment is conducted under normal atmospheric conditions. At each time interval, the percentage evaporation loss is calculated from the weight difference of the individual beaker assembly at that point of time with respect to its initial weight. The results are plotted as a time versus cumulative evaporation loss to compare the performance of various agro-textile fabrics

measured. The water absorbency [20] was calculated using following relationship:

*W W WA*

In this test, six similar size petri dishes have to be taken containing 90 gm of standard alluvial soil with saturated moisture in each pretty dish. The five petri dishes are covered with fabric samples in such a way that the fabrics have direct contact with the moist soil. The control dish is not covered with any sample fabric. To determine the moisture barrier property, the weight of each dish with soil and sample is measured initially. These weights are further taken at certain time intervals until all the dishes reach a constant weight. The cumulative evaporation loss is calculated in a similar method like non-contact process [21]. The results are plotted as a time versus cumulative evaporation loss to compare the performance of various geotextile fabrics of different fabric weight. This experiment is replicated five times and the average of five readings for each sample was calculated.
