Influence of Natural Liquid Organics on Morphology and Growth Attributes of Blackgram (Vigna mungo L.)

Background: Heavy use of chemicals in agriculture has weakened the ecological base and caused the degradation of soil, water resources and quality of the food. The increasing cost and unavailability of fertilizers, growing ecological concern has forced us to try new methods of application of nutrients. Natural farming is the new method introduced as a holistic alternative to the present chemical input based agriculture. There has been increasing interest in the use of panchagavya, beejamrutha, jeevamrutha and other liquid organic formulations during the recent years. Therefore, there is a need to compare the efficiency of natural liquid organics and the regular chemical fertilizers. Hence, the present investigation is taken up with the aim to study the effect of different foliar spray of organics on growth of blackgram. Methods: A field experiment was conducted at the dryland farm, S.V. Agricultural College, Tirupati during Kharif, 2017 to study the effect of foliar sprays of different natural liquid organics on morphological and growth attributes of blackgram. Result: The results indicated that RDF (recommended dose of fertilizers) recorded significantly maximum plant height, leaf area, dry matter, seed yield and other yield attributes over the foliar spray of liquid organics. Results further revealed that significantly lower plant height, dry matter were recorded in the treatment receiving seed treatment with beejamrutha. No significant difference in terms of days to 50% flowering was observed among the treatments. Significantly higher emergence index was recorded in the treatments receiving seed treatment with beejamrutha and water. Integrated use of organics has recorded significantly more number of root nodules compared to other treatments. Jeevamrutha foliar spray recorded to be superior over panchagavya foliar spray which was attributed to the presence of micronutrients in jeevamrutha.

​Nutrient Release Pattern of a Fortified Manure Disc and its Implication on Yield of Tomato in Sandy Soils

Background: Development of fortified organic formulations using various organic sources and fertilizers for soil application will ensure efficient nutrient management in homestead vegetable production systems. Fortified organic formulations will help in preventing nutrient leaching also. Hence, the present study has been undertaken during 2019-20 to develop low cost fortified organic manure discs using various biodegradable agro waste materials and NPK fertilizers and to study its effect on growth and yield of tomato in sandy soils of Kerala. Methods: A fortified manure disc was developed by combining local biodegradable agro waste materials with conventional NPK fertilizers. Organic manures like rice husk ash, cow dung, rice husk, coirpith compost, vermicompost, neem cake and clay were used to develop the manure disc. The combination of organic manures was fortified with fertilizers at various proportions of manure: fertilizer viz., 1:1, 2:1, 0.5:1 and manure alone and used for incubation for a period of two months to study the nutrient release pattern of N, P and K.The 2:1(manure: fertilizer) formulation was selected based on the highest peak of nutrient availability of N, P and K even after 2 months. Effect of fortified manure disc was evaluated by using tomato variety Anagha as test crop in a pot culture experiment. Result: Growth, yield and quality of tomato increased significantly due to the application of fortified manure disc. The highest yield per plant of 0.97 kg was recorded for T8 (50% recommended dose fortified manure disc in 2 splits) and lowest yield was recorded for T9 (Manure alone). The fortified manure disc had a significant influence on nutrient use efficiency also. The highest NUE of 45.5% was recorded in treatment T8 (50% fertilizer fortified discs in 2 splits). Study revealed that fortified manure disc is a promising technology to reduce nutrient leaching and enhancing the nutrient use efficiency in sandy soils. Fifty percentage reduction in the recommended dose of NPK fertilizers were achieved by fortifying the manure disc with fertilizers.Thus the cost of fertilizers and fertilizer load per unit area can be reduced by the application of fortified manure disc which will act as slow release fertilizer.

Studies on Testing the Efficacy of Liquid Organic Inputs (Panchagavya and Jeevamruth) on Maize (Zea mays l.) Germination

Organic farming is based on the system-oriented approach and the use of an organic liquid product like Panchagavya resulted in higher growth, yield and quality of crops and hence there had been an increasing interest in the use of liquid formulations. The present study was carried out to validate the shelf life of panchagavya and jeevamruth by screening scientifically under in vivo condition using maize (Zea mays). The liquid organic formulations like jeevamruth, panchagavya and the panchagavya formulations with groundnut oil cake and sesame oil as a substitute to ghee were freshly prepared and used for further studies. In all the panchagavya formulations, the root length and shoot length of the maize plants increased as compared to other treatments. The maximum shoot length 20.67 cm and root length of 9.14 cm were recorded in panchagavya treatment and minimum shoot length 18.39 cm and root length of 6.15 cm was recorded in jeevamruth treated seeds. The panchagavya treated seeds registered the maximum vigour index of 2980.

In vitro inhibitory effect of herbal organic formulations on mycelial growth of Pea wilt pathogen Fusarium oxysporum

The objective of this study was to determine inhibitory activities of three herbal organic formulations (fungidote, viridote, and bacteridote) on in vitro growth of Fusarium oxysporum causing Fusarium wilt of a pea in Manipur. In vitro results showed that these formulations inhibited the mycelial growth of F. oxysporum in a dose-dependent manner. Fungidote was found to be the most in reducing mycelial growth compared to the other two formulations at different concentrations. These results underpin that formulations could be used in eco-friendly disease management of Fusarium wilt of a pea.