Abstract
An experiment was conducted to know the effect of supplemental phosphorus on biomass growth and composition of a floating aquatic fern, Azolla pinnata, cultured in a pit system for 21 days with 4 levels of phosphorus (0, 5, 10, and 15 ppm) supplementation. Water quality parameters of the pits were within a suitable range for A. pinnata culture. It was observed that fresh and dry weights of A. pinnata increased with phosphorus supplementation up to 10 ppm. Doubling time was the fastest when the culture medium was supplemented with 10 ppm of phosphorus. Phosphorus content of A. pinnata was proportional to the phosphorus supplementation in the culture medium. Supplementation of phosphorus also improved the protein and lipid contents of A. pinnata. It was concluded that supplementation of 10 ppm phosphorus to water used for culturing A. pinnata is optimum under outdoor conditions. SAARC J. Agric., 19(1): 177-184 (2021)
Highlights
Azolla is a free-floating aquatic fern, which is a member of the family Salviniaceae
In order to determine the RGR and DT, the formulae RGR= /t and DT = t × log 2 [log (Wt Wo-1)]-1 were used, respectively, where DT is the doubling time, RGR is the relative growth rate expressed as g/g per day, t the experiment duration, Wt the final weight, and Wo the initial weight
Data were analyzed with one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to determine whether there was any significant difference among treatments mean, while LSD test was used to compare the treatment means (Hofmann, 2008)
Summary
Azolla is a free-floating aquatic fern, which is a member of the family Salviniaceae It is a dichotomously branched plant and naturally available on moist soils, ditches, and marshy ponds. This fern grows extensively in association with nitrogen-fixing bacteria (Anabaena azollae), which allows it to thrive on waters low in nitrogen but containing phosphorus. Azolla grows on floating water surfaces in the temperate and subtropical regions (Katole et al, 2017) It can reproduce sexually, by forming spores. There have been few reports about the requirement of phosphorus for sustained Azolla spp. growth (Herzalla et al, 2003; Cheng et al, 2010) Most of those studies have been conducted with pure nutrients in laboratory conditions. The present study was undertaken to know the impact of supplemental phosphorus on biomass growth and composition of A. pinnata
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