Vol. 9, Issue 12 (2020)

Author(s):
Yogendra Singh, Prerak Bhatnagar, Jitendra Singh, CK Arya, MK Sharma, IB Maurya and Yogendra Kumar Sharma

Abstract:
A field experiment entitled “Studies on consortium of Azospirillum brasilense and Vermicompost application on plant growth attributes, soil physico-chemical characteristics and microbial population in Custard apple cv. Raydurg” were conducted for two successive seasons (July 2018 to November 2018) and (July 2019 to November 2019) at the Fruit Instructional Farm, Department of Fruit Science, College of Horticulture and Forestry, Jhalawar district under Rajasthan state of India. The experiment consisted of different treatments of Azospirillum brasilense (AZS) and Vermicompost (V.C.) was laid out in Randomized Block Design with three replications. The sixteen different treatment combinations of Azospirillum brasilense and Vermicompost were applied to soil canopy of custard apple cv. Raydurg plants during first week of July 2018 and July 2019 in canopy rhizosphere of black vertisols in custard apple plants. Among various treatment combinations, T₁₀ treatment containing (AZS @ 50g + V.C. @10 kg/plant) was found comparatively better over all other treatments with respect to furthermost of the plant growth parameters, including soil physico-biochemical properties and microbial population density in soil availability in canopy of custard apple cv. Raydurg plants. The pooled consequences of two years demonstrated proportional improved plant growth parameters viz. rootstock girth (64.60 mm), scion girth (56.87 mm), plant height attribute (2.90 m), number of nodes per shoot (11.00), number of nodes per branch (64.17), number of shoots per branch (32.00), number of shoots per plant (147.83) have shown augmenting response in improvement of plant growth parameters under T₁₀ treatment (AZS @ 50g + V.C. @ 10 kg /plant) in custard apple cv. Raydurg plants. However, important soil parameters regarding bulk density (1.28 g/cm³), soil pH (7.38) and electrical conductivity (0.46 dSm^-1) lower down significantly under T₁₀ treatment over other treatments. The soil physico-chemical properties especially change in porosity (50.22%), soil texture, organic carbon (0.55%), available nitrogen content (344.30 Kg/ha), available phosphorous content (42.44 Kg ha^-1) and available potassium content (317.00 Kg ha^-1) were recorded better improve under T₁₀ treatment (AZS @ 50g + V.C. @ 10 kg /plant). In T₁₀ treatment (AZS @ 50g + V.C. @ 10 kg /plant) the values of bacterial population (27.33 cfug^-1), fungi population (14.67 cfug^-1) and actinomycetes population (10.50 cfug^-1) have shown rise. In view of overall effect and equivalence of treatments T₁₀ treatment was found comparatively better in plant growth, soil physico-chemical and microbial population. This treatment may be considered worth application in order to obtain better plant growth, soil physico-chemical and microbial population in custard apple cv. Raydurg plants.