EVALUATION OF SOILLESS STRAWBERRY (FRAGARIA ANANASSA DUCH.) CULTIVATION USING ALTERNATIVE GROWING DEVICES

Abstract

The effect of different growing systems containing soilless media and the traditional system of field cultivation was evaluated for the yield and quality of strawberry. In vitro propagated strawberry plants (RABI-3) were grown in the combined compost media of water hyacinth and vermin compost in a ratio of 4:1 in five growing systems viz. field (control), gunny mat (horizontal), gunny bag (vertical),earthen pot and PVC pipe. The result indicated that the growing systems showed highly significant differences for fruit characteristics but less difference for leaf characteristics. Among the treatments,horizontal system performed the best in case of leaves plant-1 (18.78) at flowering, fruits plant-1(9.89) and fruit length (28.79 mm) while the maximum fruit diameter (27.27 mm) and fruit weight (24.92 g) were recorded in vertical system. The fruit number in vertical system(8.00) and in earthen pot(8.00) were similar, but the fruit quality (i.e. fruit length, fruit diameter, fruit weight etc.) was found improved in vertical system, although the differences were just numerical. Plants grown in PVC pipe system had showed poor results. The horizontal system gave maximum fruit yield (235.44 g) and minimum fruit yield (12.09 g) was obtained from field. The traditional system of field cultivation gave significantly the most inferior results regarding all the parameters under study. The present findings,therefore, support that both horizontal and vertical systems may be practiced for good production of soilless strawberry cultivation.