Impact of Irrigation and Mulching on Tomato Yield and Soil Nutrient Status on Soils Treated with KCl and NaCl

An experiment was conducted at the Teaching and Research Farm of Kebbi State University of Science and Technology at Jega to evaluate tomato fruit yield and nutrient availability as influenced by mulching and irrigation schedule on salt treated soil. The experiment consists of fractional combinations of two irrigation intervals (four (I4) days irrigation and seven (I7) days irrigation intervals), and two mulching levels (with mulch and without mulch). The treatments were coded as MI4, MI7, UMI4, and UMI7: assigned as Mulch with 4 days irrigation interval, Mulch with 7 days interval, without mulch with four days irrigation interval, without mulch with seven days irrigation interval, respectively. The treatments were laid down in a randomized complete block design (RCBD), and replicated three times. Total tomato fruit yield as measured at the end of the experiment shows that I4 (4 days irrigation interval) has the highest total yield of 31.65 t ha-1 as against 21.9 t ha-1 recorded for I7 (7 days irrigation interval). Mulch application also yielded higher total fruit yield of 29.9 t ha-1 which is higher than no mulch plot which is 23.63 tha-1. However, marketable fruits also keep the same trend that is I4 is superior over I7 with the values of 55.77% and 50.79% respectively, Mulch treatment also yielded the highest percentage marketable fruit yield of 56.15% higher than no mulch plot with 50.41%. After harvest the soil properties indicated that pH was not significantly affected by irrigation intervals at both level, but Mulch treatment have 5.13 and no Mulch have 5.03. Organic Carbon percentage indicates that I4 is lower than I7 with the value of 0.43% and 0.49% respectively, also mulch treatments has higher percentage O.C. I7 is higher than I4 in terms of Total N content with the value of 0.062% and 0.055% respectively, the trend for Mulch is similar as Mulch plots is higher than no Mulch plots in Total N content. Available P content indicated that I7 has 5.28 mg kg-1, while I4 has 2.60 mg kg-1 and Mulch plots is also superior to no Mulch plots in terms available P. Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) was also affected by irrigation interval as I7 has 6.9 cmol (+) kg, which is higher than I4 which has the value of 5.82 cmol (+) kg, but Mulch and no Mulch plots indicates similar values of CEC.