Development of Seaweed Liquid Fertilizer (SLF) Consortium for the Enhancement of Agriculturally Important Crop Plants

Abstract

Modern agriculture with use of chemical fertilizers and resulted in an increase of food production. The continuous use of chemical fertilizers in agriculture field is toxic in nature and also disturbs the soil living beneficial microorganisms. So, the use of seaweed as a fertilizer in agricultural field will help to maintain the moisture content and are eco-friendly. Keeping this point in mind, the present study was aimed to develop different consortium of seaweed liquid fertilizer (SLF) to enhance crop yield. The seaweeds such as Ulva fasciata, Sargassum wightii and Padina boergesenii were collected from the rocky shore areas of Mandapam Coast, Rameshwaram District, Tamil Nadu, India. A total of four different consortium of seaweed liquid fertilizer (SLF) were prepared in different concentrations (1%, 2% and 2.5%) to determine their plant growth promoting ability in agriculturally important crop plants such as, Green gram, Black gram, Mustard and Paddy by seed germination and soil drenching methods in both sterilized and unsterilized soil at laboratory scale experimental setups. The 100% of seed germination and the maximum shoot length ((Green gram 33.73±0.64), (Black gram 34.46±0.45), (Mustard 15.96±0.20) and (Paddy 15.36±0.15)) and root length (Green gram 13.63±0.37), (Black gram 10.46±0.20), (Mustard 11.2±0.2) and (Paddy 14.43±0.30) was found high in the plants treated with the consortium of Padina boergesenii, Sargassum wightii and Ulva fasciata at 0.7% (21ml of seaweed extracts and 71ml of distilled water) concentration followed by consortium of Padina boergesenii, and Sargassum wightii at 1% (20ml of seaweed extracts and 80ml of distilled water) in unsterilized soil and the work has suggested to use this consortium of seaweed liquid fertilizer (SLF) in agricultural field to enhance the crop production.