Abstract:
Plant tissue culture media waste contains large
quantities of essential macro- and micronutrients
that are beneficial for commercial plant growth
and development. This study explored an
environmentally sustainable approach to manage
Banana Tissue Culture Waste Media (BTCWM)
by incorporating it into a novel growing medium
for cultivating salad cucumber (cv. Bonafide F1).
A greenhouse experiment was conducted using a
completely randomized design with seven
different treatments with fifteen replications
namely T1 control { 100% coconut coir dust
(CD)}, T2 (BTCWM 50%+ CD 40% + sand
10%), T3(BTCWM 40%+ CD 50% + sand 10%),
T4 (BTCWM 30% + CD 50% + sand 20%), T5
(BTCWM 20%+ CD 50% + sand 30%), T6 (
BTCWM 10%+ CD 50% + sand 40%), T7
(BTCWM 50%+ CD 50%). Our results showed
that plant growth varied significantly across
treatments. At 11 weeks after planting, T4 and T7
produced the longest vine lengths (871 cm), while
T1 had the shortest (860 cm). T7 also
demonstrated the highest leaf diameter (25.5cm)
and vine diameter (5.9cm) than that of T1 and T2.
At the 7 WAP, T7 and T5 exhibited the highest
flower production rates, with 8.3 and 7.4 flowers
per week respectively, surpassing the control
(5.1/week). Subsequently, T7 also led in fruit
weight (50.4 g/fruit), followed by T5 (49.2
g/fruit), while the control produced the lowest
(29.2 g/fruit). Among all treatments, T7 (50%
BTCWM + 50% coir dust) showed the most
promising results, suggesting that the plant tissue
culture waste media can be utilized in promoting
salad cucumber production.
