S21 - Session O2 - Optimising combinations of different nutrient sources for organic banana farming with respect to conventional farming

Authors: Jeyabaskaran Kandallu Jayaraman *, Pitchaimuthu R, Shiva K.N., Loganathan M, Uma S

An experiment was conducted with Grand Naine banana under organic cultivation for developing a strategy to sustain long-term fertility and health of soil and to enhance banana yield, quality and shelf-life. The experiment consisted of four treatments in a completely randomized block design with three replications, each consisting of 20 suckers. In all the four treatments, the nutrient dosage were given uniformly at the rate of 200g N + 100g P 2 O 5 + 300g K 2 O per plant but through application of different combinations of various organic manures as well as pure inorganic fertilisers alone and they are given as follows: T1 n application of 10kg Farm Yard Manure (FYM) + 1.25kg Neem Cake (NC) + 5kg Vermicompost (VC) + 3.75kg of Wood Ash (WA) per plant, T2 n application of 5kg Poultry Manure(PM) + 1kg Groundnut Cake (GC) + 3kg Rural Compost (RC) + 3.5kg WA per plant, T3 n 10kg Sugarcane Pressmud (SP) + 1kg Castor Cake (CC) + 5kg RC + 4kg WA per plant and T4 n 435g urea + 500g single super phosphate + 500g muriate of potash, per plant. All the treatments were given uniform dosage of biofertilisers at 45 th day after planting (DAP) as follows: 25g Vesicular-Arbuscular Mycorrhiza (VAM) + 25g Phosphate solubilising bacteria + 25g Potassium solubilising bacteria per plant. Except T4 which was imposed in 3 equal splits at 90 th , 150 th and 210 th DAP , all the treatments were imposed in 3 equal splits at 45 th DAP, 90 th DAP and 135 th DAP. At harvesting, the T2 recorded bunch weight of 25.3 kg which was at par with that of 100% inorganic fertilizer application (25.9 kg) and significantly higher than other two organic treatments like T1 (21.1 kg) and T3 (20.7 kg). A significantly more precise matching of nutrient release from soil and uptake by the plants was noticed in T2 than the other organic treatments and this was confirmed with the help of appropriate correlation studies. The same treatment (T2) recorded higher values of fruit quality parameters and optimum levels of soil physico-chemico-biological properties. Thus, the combination of 5kg PM + 1kg GC + 3kg RC + 3.5kg WA per plant was adjudged to be optimal for organic banana farming.