Vol. 11, Issue 1 (2022)

Author(s):
Mainu Hazarika, Jumi Saikia, Deepa B Phookan, Praveen Kumar and Deshraj Gujar

Abstract:
Healthy seedlings are the first and essential requirement for achieving full yield potential of any vegetable crop. The present investigation was carried out at AAU, Jorhat, Assam, India during rabi season of 2018-19 and 2019-20 to access the impact of different growing media on growth, quality and vigour of cabbage seedling and subsequent performance in the main field. The treatments consisted of four different nursery media composition viz., M₁: Cocopeat (60): Vermiculite (20): Perlite (20), M₂: Cocopeat (50): vermicompost (50), M₃: Cocopeat (50): vermicompost (50): Microbial consortium (6g/ kg media), M₄: Conventional nursery (soil: sand: FYM). The results revealed that cabbage seedlings raised in plug trays with seed sowing media coconut (50): vermicompost (50): microbial consortium i.e. M3 recorded higher seedling emergence percentage (92.67), stem diameter (3.12 mm), root length (12.01 cm), leaf area (9.15 cm²), seedling vigour index (2358.43), seedling fresh weight (1.72 g), seedling dry weight (0.38 g) and total chlorophyll content (0.99 mg g^-1fw). The same seedling raised media showed better performance in the main field of Experimental Farm, Dept of Horticulture, AAU and farmer’s field, recorded less days to seedling establishment (3.34), higher leaf area index (12.16), root length (22.07 cm), less days required to head initiation (41.64) and harvesting (62 days), higher head weight (1.58 kg), head compactness (4.09) and head yield per hectare (77.42 t) and B:C ratio of 3.88.