Effect of biofertilizer (with mycorrhiza inoculum), cowdung, nitrogen and phosphorous on growth and yield of three varieties of amaranth (Amaranthus tricolor L.)

Abstract

The experiment was conducted to study the effect of biofertilizer (with soil based mycorrhiza inoculum, AM), cowdung (CD), two inorganic fertilizers (Urea, N and Phosphorous, P) on the growth and yield of three different varieties of amaranth (Amaranthus tricolor). The experiment was carried out with nine treatments in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with three replications and 81 treatment combinations. Plant height, plant diameter, total number of leaves per plant, fresh weight of whole plant (shoot and root), root length, dry weight of whole plant (shoot and root) of three varieties of amaranth were recorded after 40 DAS of sowing. Two way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was carried out and the mean differences of the treatments were adjusted by Turkey pairwise comparisons at P ≤ 0.05 of significant level. Application of AM, CD and N significantly influenced the shoot height of amaranth. The highest (49.07 cm) and lowest (31.78 cm) shoot height were recorded in T9 treatment (AM + CD + N) and T1 (basal dose; control) respectively and both are significantly different at P ≤ 0.05. The result shown that root length of amaranth was significantly similar (P≤0.05) for all treatments which was either by individual or combined of test medium. The highest root length (18.85 cm) was noted from T2 treatment (AM) on variety 1 (green).and the lowest length (12.94 cm) was recorded in T1 (control) on variety 3 (mixed). The combined application improved stem diameter of amaranth in T9 (AM+CD+N). The plant obtained adequate nutrition from T9 and the stem growth was thicker when compare to others. Among the varieties tested, variety 1 (green) showed the highest average diameter (1.12 cm) of stem. Significant effect of AM, CD and N was found on number of leaves per plant in amaranth. The highest number of leaves per plant was observed in T9 on variety 1 (green) and treatments T1, T3, T4, T5, T6 and T7 had statistically identical effect. Significant variation in fresh and dry weight of amaranth was observed due to the effect of AM, CD and N. It was observed that the maximum fresh and dry weight per plant (59.7 g and 7.35 g respectively) was observed in T9 (AM + CD + N) on variety 3 (mixed) and that was significantly higher than all other treatments. The experimental results indicated that there were significant differences in growth and yield characters such as plant height, plant diameter, number of leaves per plant, shoot fresh and dry weights, root fresh and dry weights of amaranth., Since a remarkable higher response in growth and yield of variety 1 (green) and variety 3 (mixed) were observed by the influence of T9 and hence the cost of adding of phosphorous to the soil can be reduced.