Investigation on effect of time of planting in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) under polyhouse conditions in Manipur, India

Abstract

An experiment on the standardization of time of planting for growing cucumber(Cucumis sativus L.) inside polyhouse was conducted during 2010-11 at the Horticutural Experimental Field, College of Agriculture, Central Agricultural University, Imphal (Manipur), India. The experiment comprised of four dates of planting (September, October, November and December) and two cucumber varieties viz.Alamgir CT 280 and Alamgir CT 380, in Factori-al Randomised Block Design with three replications and eight treatments.Impact of time of planting was established on vegetative characters; flowering and fruiting characters; yield and yielding attributes. Effect of different time of planting and variety on growth of cucumber was found to produce significant effect (at 5% level of probability) on main vine length, numbers of leaves per plant and leaf area. For both the varieties, September planting gave maxi-mum values of main vine length (221.93 cm and 240.51 cm, respectively), number of leaves per plant (21.21 and 21.92, respectively) and leaf area (393.26 cm2 and 413.76 cm2, respectively). The treatment combination of Septem-ber planting with Alamgir CT 280 gave shorter number of days (12.6) from fruit set to maturity. The different time of planting and varieties and their interactions showed significant effect on number of fruits per plant, fruit length (cm), fruit diameter (cm), single fruit weight (g), fruit yield/plant (kg) and fruit yield/ha (t). The results revealed that the treatment combination of September planting with Alamgir CT 380 gave the highest yield (47.31t/ha), as compared with October, November and December plantings. However, the maximum cost- benefit ratio (1: 2.24) was found in October planting. The present study suggests that cucumber can be grown successfully during winter months under polyhouse in Manipur, India condition.