A field experiment was carried out in Alfisols of eastern Dry Zone of Karnataka at University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore. During kharif 2010 to study the effect of different locally available mulches on soil properties and crop performance in maize. Soil was red sandy loam in texture, slightly acidic and low in available in nitrogen, medium in available P and K. The experiment consisted of 9 treatment namely application of additional FYM ( Farm Yard Manure), Mulching with straw, mulching with coir pith, mulching with coconut fronds, application of tank silt, sunhemp in-situ green manuring, Glyricidia green leaf manuring, horse gram intercropping and control replicated thrice were layout in RCBD. The plant growth namely plant height, stem girth, leaf area index and leaf area duration were found favorable influenced by mulching treatments. In plots which received sunhemp in-situ green manuring registered higher value of plant growth parameters. The highest grain yield (5269 kg/ha) was obtained from the plots. Which was closely followed glyricidia leaf manuring (4651 kg/ha) which are at par with each other. Higher yield in the said treatments were due to yield components namely grain yield/plat, test weight and number of grains/cob. Thus inclusion of crop sunhemp as addition in maize and incorporating it as in-situ green manuring helped in achieving better soil moisture conservation and weed suppression.