Organic amendments and mulching for growth flowering yield seed production and post harvest life in China aster

Abstract

newline The investigation was conducted at Dhemaji during 2019-20 and 2020- newline21, to study the effect of Organic amendments and mulching for growth, flowering, newlineyield, seed production and post harvest life in China aster consisting of 36 treatments newlineand 3 replications. Post-harvest quality of flowers was further studied for long distance newlinetransport in four different packaging material and three harvesting stages. newlineThe vegetative characters in pooled data were highly influenced by the newlinenutrient treatment N4 (Microbial consortium (Bio fertilizers) + Rock Phosphate at 5 newlineg/m2 + Vermicompost at 3.0 t/ha) where the highest plant height 60.00 cm , 205.68 newlinenumber of leaves, 8.25 number of branches and 3313.39 cm2 leaf area. Similarly the newlinemulching M2 (Silver lined plastic mulching) and its interaction with N4 i.e., N4M2 newlinerecorded the highest values for these traits. newlineThe minimum days for full bloom was recorded in the nutrient treatment newlineN4 with 107.65 days, the mulching treatment M2 with 112.16 days and their interaction newline(N4M2) with 104.36 days. The nutrient treatment N4 recorded the highest number of newlineflowers of 52.58, blooming period of 45.31 days, self life of 13.77 days and vase life of newline11.15 days. The red plastic mulching (M3) was found to record higher values in terms of newlineflower characters though at par with M2. The interaction treatment N4M2 recorded the newlinehighest number of flowers per plant (54.23) while N4M3 recorded at par performance newlinewith N4M2 showing maximum blooming period of 48.87 days, self life of 14.08 days newlineand vase life of 11.73 days in pooled data. newlineThe physiological parameters were highly influenced by the nutrient newlinetreatments with N4 recording the highest chlorophyll content of 3.24 mg g-1, newlineanthocyanin content of 309.02 mg 100g-1, NAR of 0.92 and RLWC of 93.21%. The newlinemulching treatment M3 recorded highest values in terms of the above physiological newlineparameters. newlineThe highest seed yield was observed in the treatment N4 (8.10 g/plant newlineand 13.49 q/ha), M2 (7.52 g/plant and 12.53 q/ha) and the interaction N4M2 (8.45 g/pla