Boosting Bottle Gourd Growth: Effects of Inorganic Fertilizer and Sargassum Tea Spray | InformativeBD

Genaro D. Omo, from the institute Philippines. wrote a Research Article about, Boosting Bottle Gourd Growth: Effects of Inorganic Fertilizer and Sargassum Tea Spray. entitled, Response of bottlegourd (Lagenaria Siceraria Standley) to the application of inorganic fertilizer and spraying with sargassum tea. This research paper published by the International Journal of Biosciences (IJB). an open access scholarly research journal on Biosciences. under the affiliation of the International Network For Natural Sciences | INNSpub. an open access multidisciplinary research journal publisher.

Abstract

Nowadays, most cultivated farms for crop production are already depleted with soil nutrients due to intensive planting with various crops to sustain the demand of food of the fast-increasing population. It was observed that the depletion of soil nutrients had great effect to the productivity of the farm that resulted to low crop yield and inferior quality of produce. The most intensively planted crop that contributed much to the depletion of the soil nutrients are cereals and vegetables. In vegetable production, one of the most intensively cultivated vegetable is the bottlegourd (Lagenaria siceraria Standley). It belongs to the Cucurbitaceae’s family that can be planted year-round. To enhance the growth and yield of the bottlegourd, the application of inorganic fertilizer and spraying with Sargassum tea was done. Hence, this study was conducted to evaluate the effects of the application of different rates of inorganic fertilizer and spraying with different concentrations of Sargassum tea on the growth and yield of the bottlegourd. The experiment was laid out in three blocks and the treatments were arranged following the 4 x 5 Factorial Randomized Complete Block Design. Result revealed complementary effects of the application of inorganic fertilizer and spraying with Sargassum tea that the bottlegourd applied with 100% Recommended Rate Inorganic Fertilizer and Sprayed with 1 Part Sargassum Tea: 15 Parts Water (I3S3) was the earliest to have harvestable fruits at 54.17 days after transplanting, highest fruit yield (27.47 tha-1) and net income (PhP240,562.36).

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Introduction

Vegetables are considered as one of the major crops grown and source of income of farmers in Northern Philippines. Majority of the people in this countryside are considered vegetarian because much of their diet was a variety of vegetables as compared to other people in different part of the country. Bottlegourd (Lagenaria siceraria) is one among the most grown and consumed vegetable. This vegetable belongs to the Cucurbitaceae family under the genus Lagenaria from the word lagena or bottle. Bottlegourd can be grown throughout the year in tropical areas. It can be planted in most kind of soil, preferably in loam soil with high organic matter contents and in warm and humid climate (Minocha et al., 2015).

However, the soil conditions of most farms in the Philippines are already considered at an alarming situation due to nutrient depletion caused by continuous planting with various crops. According to Liu et al. (2006) that continuous cultivation was observed as one of the main caused of decreasing soil pH, Ca and Mg in most soils. Likewise, soil degradation due to losses of OM content are also among the prime concerned in most agricultural areas of the world because the amount of nutrients consumed by the plants in every cropping period were not replenished with any organic ameliorant. Moreover, the depletion of soil nutrient was considered as the root cause of the decreasing per capita production of food from crops specially in small farms (Drechsel et al., 2001; Tan et al., 2005), that this declining food production could pose great threat to food supply stability and security. 

Therefore, one of the immediate remedies done by most farmers to improve the soil productivity was the application of inorganic fertilizers. However, the application of inorganic fertilizers in the soil is not always the ultimate remedy to increase production because there are always possibilities that it could not be utilized by the plants due to the effects of soil pH, organic matter content, availability of moisture, cation exchange capacity and many more. Further, it is possible that the fertilizers being applied could be fixed or bind with the existing elements in the soil that convert it into unavailable form which could not be absorbed nor utilized by the plants. Likewise, the deficiency of any micronutrients even in minute quantity has great negative effect to the growth and yield of the plants. However, such problem can be corrected by spraying with the necessary nutrients on the leaves of the plants, but commercial foliar fertilizers are very expensive in the market. This problem draws the attention of the government authorities and other concerned groups to find some ways to reciprocate the effects on food sustainability and security.

Hence, the use of locally available organic inputs or other natural liquid extract with enhancing effects aside from the more popular inorganic foliar fertilizer should be given with importance like the seaweed liquid fertilizer. Seaweed has great potential to promote growth and boost yield of any crop due to the presence of macro and micro-nutrients, phytohormones, vitamins and enzymes. At present, products derived from seaweeds are becoming very useful in crop production as organic fertilizer or foliar fertilizer. They enhanced seed germination, improve growth of seedling, increase the tolerance of plants to various unfavorable abiotic conditions (Zhang and Ervin, 2004; Zhang and Ervin, 2008) and boost plant growth, development and yield (Hong et al., 2007; Zodape et al., 2008; Khan et al., 2009; Kumari et al., 2011). According to Verkleij (1992) that liquid fertilizer derived from seaweeds extract have macro and micro-nutrients, amino acids and phytohormones. So, in agriculture, the utilization of seaweeds as organic fertilizers had increased recently (Dhargalkar and Pereira, 2005). 

Among the endemic seaweeds in the Philippines, Sargassum sp. are abundantly found at the shallow seas of the archipelago. Moreover, unlike to other seaweeds with commercial value, Sargassum seaweeds was not yet exploited nor fully utilized for any purposes; therefore, its availability was not yet affected.

Therefore, the aims of this study are; a) to evaluate the effects of the application of different rates of inorganic fertilizer on the development and yield of bottlegourd, b) to assess the effects of spraying different concentrations of Sargassum tea as foliar fertilizer on the development and yield of bottlegourd, c) to evaluate the interaction effects of the application of the different rates of inorganic fertilizer and spraying with different concentrations of Sargassum tea on the development and yield of the bottlegourd, and d) to determine the profitability of producing bottlegourd using inorganic fertilizer and Sargassum tea as foliar fertilizer.

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Source : Response of bottlegourd(Lagenaria Siceraria Standley) to the application of inorganic fertilizer andspraying with sargassum tea