Integrated nutrient management for ornamentals in vertical garden

Abstract

The research programme entitled ‘Integrated Nutrient Management for ornamentals in vertical garden was carried out in the Department of Floriculture and Landscaping, College of Agriculture, Vellayani, Thiruvananthapuram during the period 2022-2023 to evaluate the growing media components, biofertilizer, and foliar nutrient spray for improving growth of foliage ornamentals in vertical garden system This study comprises of two objectives the first objective is to standardise the growing media composition and biofertilizer in Nephrolepis cordifolia and the second objective is to standardize the foliar spray for ornmanetal foliage plants such as Chlorophytum comosum, Tradescantia fluminensis, Rheo discolor, Peperomia obtusifolia and Epipremnum aureum The first experiment was “ Standardization of growing media composition and biofertilizer”, laid out in Completely randaomized design with 15 treatments involving 5 different media such as M1-Control (soil + sand + FYM) (1:1:1), M2- (soil + rock sand + coirpith + vermicompost ) ( 1:0.5:0.5:1), M3- (soil+ rock sand + vermicompost )(1:1) + Hydrogel (25g), M4- (coirpith + vermiculite + perlite + vermicompost )(1:0.5:0.5:1) and M5 - (coirpith + newspaper bits + charcoal bits + vermicompost)(1:0.5:0.5:1) and three biofertilizers (B1 – Control (without biofertilizer), B2 – VAM (3g / container ) and B3 – PGPR-1(2g/ container ) for improving growth of foliage ornamental Nephrolepis cordifolia Notably, treatment combination M4B1 comprising coirpith, vermiculite, perlite and vermicompost in the ratio 1:0.5:0.5:1 and biofertilizer , B2 (VAM ) at 3g/ container, exhibited superior performance across various parameters such as plant spread, plant height, number of divisions, leaf number, leaf production interval, total biomass production, chlorophyll content and ornamental value index. Conversely, M3(soil: rocksand : vermicompost) (1:1 ) with the addition of Hydrogel (25 g) demonstrated the least favourable outcomes in terms of plant spread, number of leaves , leaf production interval , total biomass production and ornamental value index . In the second experiment, for “standardization of foliar spray for ornamentals”, the media which was standardized from the first experiment were taken and 5 foliage ornamentals were planted in the prescribed media and foliar fertilizers such as F1 – control – 19:19:19 (1%) @ 25ml/ plant at fortnightly intervals, F2- Complex fertilizer 19:19:19 (1%) monthly, F3 – Urea (1%) monthly and F4 – Complex fertilizer 30:10:10 (1%) monthly were studied Among the interaction effect, treatment combination F3P2 revealed significantly higher value for plant spread and plant height, whereas it was significantly lower in F1P5. For total biomass production and air pollution tolerance index F2P4 showed significantly higher values and it was lower for F4P4. For total chlorophyll content F1P4 was having significantly higher values and lower value was observed in F4P2. Among the various foliage plants studied Peperomia obtusifolia (Baby rubber plant) showed less tolerance to pollution plant spread, plant height and number of branches were found significantly higher for Tradescantia fluminensis (wandering jew) The study concludes that media comprising coirpith, vermiculite, perlite and vermicompost in the ratio (1:0.5:0.5:1) along with biofertilizer, VAM at 3g/ container, exhibited superior performance in Nephrolepis cordifolia under vertical garden system. The same media composition (coirpith, vermiculite, perlite and vermicompost in the ratio 1:0.5:0.5:1) along with monthly application of foliar fertilization of urea (1%) recorded better performance in growth of other foliage ornamental foliages such as Chlorophytum comosum, Tradescantia fluminensis, Rheo discolor, Peperomia obtusifolia and Epipremnum aureum under vertical garden system