Influence of mulching materials on the growth of citrus and weed suppression potential of mulching materials in citrus nursery

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at National Horticultural Research Institute, Ibadan, Nigeria to evaluate the influence of mulch materials on growth performances of Cleopatra mandarin (Citrus reticulata) rootstock and budded shaddock (Citrus grandis) scion performances and also to determine the effect of mulching materials on citrus in the nursery. The mulch materials were Azadirachta indica (neem) leaf, Eugenia uniflora (pitanga) leaf, Terminalia catappa (tropical almond) leaf, black plastic polythene while hoe weeding was used as control. Results revealed that there were significant differences amongst the treatments in stem diameter, plant height, number of citrus leaves and number of branches. Tropical almond leaf mulch increased stem diameter by 51%, pitanga leaf mulch increased plant height by 32.5%, black plastic mulch increased number of citrus leaves by 46.1% and neem increased number of branches by 52.6%, sixteen weeks after transplanting for Cleopatra mandarin rootstock, while, pitanga leaf mulch and neem leaf mulch increased stem diameter by 20%, scion length by 15.6% while, neem leaf mulch increased number of leaves by 6.5% and number of branches by 2.3 %, twelve weeks after budding, for budded shaddock scion. Weed biomass was reduced by 48.6% in plot mulched with black plastic, while, root spread was increased by 41.2% in plot mulched with A. indica leaves as compared to hoeing (Control).