Response OF BRINJAL( Solanum melongena L.) to integrated nutrient management in acidic
saNDY loam soil
Alok Nandi, S. K. Patnaik, G. Prasad, S. K. Dash and h.n. mishra
All India Coordinated Vegetable Improvement Project, Department of Horticulture, Orissa University of Agriculture & Technology, Bhubaneswar-751003.
Summary
A field experiment was conducted at the All India Coordinated Vegetable Improvement Project, Orissa University of Agriculture & Technology, Bhubaneswar during 2001-02 & 2002-03 in order to study the effects of organic manures and amendments alone or in combination with fertilizers, on the vegetative growth, yield, quality, fruit borer incidence, soil health and economics of brinjal in acidic, sandy loam soil. Mean data revealed that the application of F.Y.M. @ 10t/ha + recommended NPK fertilizers resulted in the highest yield (222.97 q/ha), plant height (60.18 cm), net income (Rs. 48,001/ha), plant height (53.46 cm), branches/ plant (4.74), leaf area ( 49.51 sq.cm), net income (Rs. 15,916/ha), benefit:cost ratio(2.08), organic carbon and available P in soil. There was an improvement in soil pH, tending towards neutrality, in whichever treatments organic amendments were either used alone or in combination with fertilizers.
Introduction
Brinjal (Solanum melongena) is an important vegetable crop of Orissa as well as India, but its cultivation involves indiscriminate application of large quantities of fertilizers and pesticides, which are detrimental to soil, environment and human health. In order to overcome the adverse effects of inorganic fertilizers, pesticides and other harmful chemicals, it is imperative to switchover to the alternative system of agriculture represented by organic agriculture or ecological agriculture and to minimize dependence on inorganic fertilizers by resorting to integrated nutrient management. Organic agriculture is a production system, which avoids or largely excludes the use of synthetic compounded fertilizers, pesticides, growth regulators and livestock feed additives. Organic farming does not totally exclude the elements of modern agriculture. Hence, an experiment was formulated and conducted to study the effects of various organic manures and amendments alone or in combination with fertilizers, on vegetative growth, yield, quality, fruit borer incidence, soil health and economics in brinjal.
Materials and Methods
A field experiment was conducted at the All India Coordinated Vegetable Improvement Project, Orissa University of Agriculture & Technology, Bhubaneswar, during the years 2001-2002 and 2002-2003. One-month-old seedlings of the brinjal variety Utkal Anushree (BB 45C) were transplanted at a spacing of 60cm x 45cm on 25 September 2001 and 26 September 2002 in the respective years. During both the years, the net plot size was 3 m x 2.7m. Fertilizers were applied @ 125 kg N, 50 kg P2O5 and 75 kg K2O per hectare and F.Y.M @ 20 tonnes per hectare. All other operations were carried out as per recommended package of practices. Initial pH of the soil was 4.18 and the organic carbon, mineralisable N, available P and available K were low, low, high and medium respectively. The experiment was laid out in the randomized block design with 3 replications and 8 treatments were taken as follows: T1-Recommended dose of NPK through chemical fertilizers (control), T2-F.Y.M. @ 20t/ha, T3-F.Y.M. @ 10t/ha + Recommended dose of NPK through chemical fertilizers, T4-Neem cake @ 5q/ha + Recommended dose of NPK though chemical fertilizers, T5-Vermicompost @ 5t/ha, T6-Vermicompost @ 2.5t/ha + Recommended dose of NPK through chemical fertilizers, T7-Pressmud @ 10t/ha, T8– Pressmud @ 5t/ha + Recommended dose of NPK through chemical fertilizers.
Observations were recorded on plant height, number of primary branches, leaf area, days to first flowering, fruit length, fruit girth, fruit weight, fruit yield per plot, incidence of fruit borer and total soluble solids. Economics of the treatments were also worked out. Soil samples were analyzed for pH by the glass electrode Beckman’s pH meter (Jackson, 1967), mineralisable N was estimated from organic matter content, available P by Bray’s 1 method (Bray and Kurtz, 1945) and available K by flame photometer method. Statistical analysis was done in accordance with the method described by Gomez and Gomez (1984).
Results and Discussion
A perusal of Table 2 shows that significant differences were observed among the treatments in respect of the characters studied except fruit length, fruit girth and TSS in brinjal. The mean of two years showed that plant height was maximum (60.18cm) in case of T3 followed by T1(57.12cm) and T8 (56.52cm). It is observed from the results that in general, the heights of plants produced as a result of application of organics alone (F.Y.M., vermicompost and press mud) were lesser than those obtained by inorganic fertilizers alone or their combinations with different organics. Similar observations were made by Nirmala and Vadivel (1999) who also reported that a combination of F.Y.M. and inorganic fertilizer was superior to application of F.Y.M. alone. In the present study, sole application of F.Y.M. was found to be better than sole application of vermicompost, which corroborates the finding of Subba Rao and Ravi Sankar (2001).
Primary branches / plant
The mean data of two years revealed that T8(5.30) was the best and the treatments T3(5.17) and T1(5.04) were next in order(Table 2).
Considering the sole application of different types of organic manures, branches per plant were maximum (4.74) with press mud followed by F.Y.M. (4.26) and vermicompost (3.37) as observed from the mean data of two years. Similarly, Subba Rao and Ravisankar (2001) had also found that vermicompost produced lesser number of branches/ plant than F.Y.M. in case of brinjal.
Leaf area
The maximum leaf area (63.82 sq.cm) was recorded in the treatment T1 and the treatments which were next in order were T4 (63.58 sq.cm.) and T6 (51.95 sq.cm.) (Table 2). In general, leaf areas were more wherever inorganic fertilizers were either used alone or combined with different levels of organic amendments. When organic amendments were used alone, leaf areas were lesser, irrespective of the specific type of amendment used. This finding is in consonance with that of Nirmala and Vadivel (1999).
Fruit yield
The highest fruit yield was recorded in T3 followed by T8 and T1. It can be summarized from the yield data (Table 2 ) that fruit yields derived from the application of different organic amendments alone (F.Y.M., vermicompost & press mud) were lesser than those obtained as a result of the combined effect of organic manures & fertilizers, irrespective of their doses. The findings of other researchers (Nirmala et al., 1999; Nirmala and Vadivel, 1999; Renuka and Ravisankar, 2001; Yadav and Yadav ,2001; Babu et al.,2007; Sujatha et al., 2008; Nandi,2008) were in conformity with the results obtained in the present investigation.
In general, the organics produced lesser yields than the inorganic treatment or combinations of organics & inorganics. Similar findings were reported by Balsal and Gupta (1998), Quattrucci (2000) and Nandi (2008).
Fruit weight
The mean data showed that T8 had the highest (65.34g) fruit weight followed by T3 which were significantly better than the control(Table 2). These observations are in tune with the findings of Stofella and Graetz (2000) who reported that in tomato a combination of organics & inorganics recorded better fruit weight regardless of fertilizer application rates.
Percentage incidence of fruit borer
It is observed from (Table 2) that there were significant differences among the treatments with respect to borer incidence. The treatment T4 (Neem cake @ 5 q/ha + recommended NPK) was found to be significantly better than rest of the treatments including control. T5 (vermicompost alone), T6 (vermicompost + NPK ) and T2 (F.Y.M. alone) were significantly better than the control. The confirmed superiority of neem cake and neem based products was also shown by Singh (2000) and Chakraborti (2001). Again, Rajapakshe (2000) and Wang Ran et al. (2000) exhibited that use of organic amendments alone compared with inorganic fertilizers, could reduce the incidence of biotic stresses in vegetables.
Total soluble solids
With respect to the character under consideration, significant differences were not found among the treatments (Table 2). This trend corroborates that of Duraiswamy et al (1999), Quattrucci (2000) and Yadav and Yadav (2001).
Economics of different treatments
A reference to Table 3 shows that the gross incomes of different treatments ranged from Rs.12,600/ha in T5 (Vermicompost @ 5 t/ha) to Rs. 66,891/ha in T3 (F.Y.M. @ 10 t/ha + Rec.NPK ). Again, the maximum net income (Rs. 48,000/-) was derived from T3 and there was a loss to the tune of Rs. 5,180 in T5. However, among the treatments receiving only organic manures/amendments, T7 (Press mud @ 10 t /ha) was the best both in terms of gross (Rs. 30,666/ha) and net (Rs. 15,916/ha) income followed by T2 (F.Y.M. @ 20 t/ha). The highest benefit: cost ratio(3.54) was obtained in T3 followed by T8 (3.41) and T1 (2.92). Among the pure organic treatments, T7 (Press mud @ 10 t/ha) was the best (2.08) followed by T2 (F.Y.M. @ 20 t/ha).
Soil status after brinjal
Sole application of inorganic fertilizers to brinjal, resulted in post harvest soil pH of 4.5 (Table 4). On the contrary, there was an improvement in soil pH, tending towards neutrality in whichever treatments organic manures such as F.Y.M., press mud and vermicompost were either used alone or in combination with fertilizers. Keipert et al. (1990) and Renuka and Ravisankar (2001) working on vegetable crops also opined that application of different forms of organic manures amends the soil pH shifting it to the direction of neutrality.
The highest value of organic carbon to the tune of 4.5 g/kg soil was observed with the sole application of either F.Y.M. @10 t/ha or press mud @ 10 t/ha to soil (Table 6 ) . The lower value (3.6) was estimated for the treatment involving use of inorganic fertilizer alone. Generally, the treatments which received either full or half doses of organic amendments showed higher organic carbon status except in vermicompost application. This indicates that use of organic amendments have a positive influence on soil health. The present findings are corroborated by those of Keipert et al.(1990) and Balasubramaniam et al.(1998).
The maximum value of available P (123 kg/ha) was recorded when press mud was applied alone and the lowest (75.3 kg/ha) value with F.Y.M. @ 20 t/ha. Keipert et al. (1990) and Baquero and Pinto (2000) also reported enhanced P content by application of organic amendments in soil. The results also showed that whenever organic amendments such as such as F.Y.M., vermicompost or press mud were applied to brinjal crop, the final soil analysis indicated relatively lesser content of soil K than the initial status before the start of the experiment. The results are in conformity with the findings of Keipert et al.(1990).
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