Vol. 12, Issue 6 (2023)

Author(s):
Prashanth DV, GN Thippeshappa, BC Dhananjaya, BR Harsha and Nandeesha CV

Abstract:
A potential supply of organic materials and nutrients is lost when arecahusk trash is currently burned as a form of disposal. There is still much to be learned about the utility of arecanut waste as an organic resource. Shortage, high price and adverse effect of fertilizers drive to hunt alternative sources as compost. Arecahusk was composted using microbial consortia and enriched with plant growth promoting rhizobacteria. Two field experiments were conducted in maize – green gram cropping sequence to evaluate residual effect of enriched arecahusk compost applications on growth and yield of green gram under rainfed conditions in two consecutive years (2019–2020 and 2020–2021). The design includes ten treatments replicated thrice in a randomized complete block design. The residual treatment supplemented with enriched arecahusk compost (AHC) and NPK fertilizer (75% RDN+ enriched AHC + 25% N through enriched AHC) significantly increased the growth (plant height up to 29.94%, number of leaves up to 38%, drymatter up to 35.97%), yield parameters (grain and straw yield up to 29.21% and 37.90% respectively). It can be concluded that arecahusk compost could be a potential alternative to FYM, which overcomes the problem of procuring FYM and disposal of arecahusk by areca growing farmers and it also minimize the dependence on chemical fertilizers.