YIELD, CROP WATER PRODUCTIVITY AND ECONOMIC BENEFIT OF BOTTLE GOURD (Lagenaria siceraria) PRODUCTION IN RESPONSE TO IRRIGATION

The production of bottle gourd on a farm often involves one or two irrigation events. The objective of this research was to detect the optimum time of irrigation, whenever water source is available or scarce concerning yield crop water productivity and financial benefit. The experiment was conducted at the regional agricultural research center, Hathazari, Chittagong, during two consecutive seasons (from November 2019 to February 2020, and from November 2020 to February 2021). A randomized complete block design was adopted, with three blocks and five treatments: rainfed condition (T1), irrigation at three days intervals (T2), irrigation at three weeks intervals (T3), irrigation at flowering stage (T4), and irrigation at fruiting stage (T5). The treatment of irrigation at three days intervals was the better practice for bottle gourd cultivation, based on yield (around 76 ton ha-1), crop water productivity (28 kg m-3), and financial benefit (benefit/cost ratio = 3.5) than any others. The yield, crop water productivity and benefit of bottle gourd were more responsive to irrigation at the flowering stage than irrigation at the fruiting stage. Therefore, the crops should be irrigated more frequently at field capacity, in case of water availability. Otherwise, for water scarcity and having a scope of only one irrigation event, there should be irrigated at the flowering stage.