Vol. 11, Issue 12 (2022)

Author(s):
Aniket Kumar Sahu, BM Tandel and NK Patel

Abstract:
An experiment was conducted at Navsari Agricultural University, Navsari, Gujarat, India in year 2022 to study the effect of growing media on germination, growth and nutrients uptake of papaya seedlings (Carica papaya L.). The experiment was laid out in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with three repetitions and eleven treatments combinations of Cocopeat, Vermicompost, Vermiculite, Perlite and Peatmoss. Nutrient solution applied once in a day for watering of papaya seedling. The results of an experiment on different growing media, Cocopeat + Peat moss (3:2 v/v) were found most beneficial for improving germination percent (95.23%), took minimum days for 50% germination (9.67), maximum vigour index-I (2301.61 cm) and vigour index-II (91.83 g). The maximum growth parameters such as height of seedling (8.05 and 24.16 cm), number of leaves (7.30 and 9.34), collar diameter (2.97 and 6.05 mm) at 30 and 45 DAS, leaf area (39.60 cm2), length of tape root (17.92 cm), tape root diameter (5.14 mm), number of secondary roots (17.33), fresh weight of shoot (9.59 g), fresh weight of root (2.71g), dry weight of shoot (0.96 g), dry weight of root (0.29 g) and survival percentage (100%). The maximum nitrogen (24.62, 17.05 and 3.65 mg plant-1), phosphorous (7.25, 4.91 and1.62 mg plant-1) and potassium (23.08, 24.24 and 6.34 mg plant-1) uptake of leaf, stem and root, respectively in papaya seedling at 45 DAS.