Development of N-enriched Azolla biofertilizer, for Amaranthus viridis by amalgamating natural and organic waste ingredients.

Abstract

Chemical fertilizers cause a slew of societal and environmental problems and it is urged to explore the potential of locally available substances to supplement major nutrients to the crops. Nitrogen (N), can be supplemented with the aquatic fern, Azolla (Azolla pinnata). Several authors claimed that Azolla can be easily grown and compatible to mix with N-based locally available resources. This study aims to develop an N-enriched Azolla bio-fertilizer for the cultivation of Amaranthus viridis by amalgamating natural and organic waste ingredients. Hence an attempt was made to increase the pellet-forming efficiency of the modified Portable Pellet Forming Device (PPFD) with a newly added wingnut, cross knife, spring, and flat washer. The N-enriched Azolla pellets were produced from locally available natural and organic waste. The purpose of PPFD is to use it for small-level and efficient pellets production. Organic pellets were prepared by using Azolla, Aloe vera, cow urine, distillery spent wash (DSW), termitaria, wild indigo and extruded by PPFD. The experimental design was arranged in CRD with 6 treatments with 5 replicates. The following treatments T1=Azolla+Aloe+termitaria (8:4:2), T2=Azolla+wild indigo+termitaria (8:4:2), T3=Azolla+cow urine+termitaria (8:4:2), T4=Azolla+DSW+termiteria(8:4:2), T5=Azolla+Aloe+cowurine+wildindigo+DWS+termitaria (8:1:1:2;2), T6 control=top soil+urea (8:8) were used for investigations. The following data such as leaf length, leaf width, plant height and the number of leaves of A. viridis were taken after the germination. Data were analyzed by using the SAS version 9.1.3 software. The results indicateed that T5 gave the best results for the number of leaves (7.4), leaf width (2.8cm), length (3.58cm), plant height (14.14cm) of A. viridis plant compared to other treatments. It was also determined in the tests that 5.98% amount of nitrogen in 1g of pellet (T5). In this study, within the first week, a rapid increase in the number of leaves (6.4cm) was observed in (T3). Exploring the possibility of other N supplements to improve the efficiency of nitrogen products and the combination of pellets can be used as a means of N supplement to grow Amaranthus plant.