Abstract
The experiment was carried out at the research farm of Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture, Mymensingh, Bangladesh during December 2015 to January 2016 to evaluate the effects of cow dung (CD), poultry manure (PM) and mustard oil cake (MOC) along with NPK fertilizer amendments on the growth and yield performances of red amaranth in silty loam soil. The treatments were (i) NPK (control), (ii) NPK + CD, (iii) NPK + PM and (iv) NPK + MOC. All three types of manures significantly increased the plant height and numbers of leaves plant-1, thereby fresh weight, yield compared with the control (NPK). The best results in terms of vegetable fresh yield were obtained in the following order: NPK > CD > PM > MOC. Application of MOC is not beneficial due to 30 times higher price than CD and PM. PM added NPK fertilizer combination showed higher vegetable yield (10.87 t ha-1) than CD added NPK fertilizer combination (10.17 t ha-1). PM added fertilizer combination also had almost equal investment and cost-benefit ratio in comparison with CD. The lowest marginal benefit-cost ratio (1.09) was observed in MOC added NPK fertilizer combination though it showed higher vegetable yield (11.08 t ha-1). The farmers’ can be recommended to follow NPK + CD fertilizer combination. Manures applied post soil analysis showed improves the soil physiochemical properties.
 Res. Agric., Livest. Fish.6(2): 263-269, August 2019
Highlights
Red amaranth (Amaranthus tricolor ) is widely grown as vegetables both in tropics and sub-tropics area of the world
Frequent crop cultivation using modern/high yielding varieties to meet the demand for increasing population has led to a depletion of soil fertility
The whole amount of TSP, MoP, cow dung (CD), poultry manure (PM), mustard oil cake (MOC) and half urea were applied during final land preparation three days before seed sowing
Summary
Red amaranth (Amaranthus tricolor ) is widely grown as vegetables both in tropics and sub-tropics area of the world. The integrated nutrient management is the best approach to restore/ maintain soil fertility and productivity on sustainable basis. Both manures and fertilizers enhance the growth and yield of red amaranth to a great extent. In Bangladesh, a day, the organic fertilizers like cowdung and chicken manure are available due to increasing dairy and poultry farm. Application of organic manure can increase the efficiency of chemical fertilizers and improve the soil condition for the production of garlic (Mondal et al, 2016). Information on the use of poultry and oil cake manures in combination with inorganic fertilizers for red amaranth is scanty in Bangladesh. An attempt was made to study the response of red amaranth to manures (cowdung, chicken manure and oil cake) in presence of N, P and K and its impact on soil quality in the Old Brahmaputra Flood plans, Bangladesh
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