Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

COMPARATIVE STUDIES ON THE EFFECT OF VARIOUS BIOFERTILIZERS ON THE GROWTH, YIELD, AND QUALITY OF CARROT (DAUCUS CAROTA L.)

Tanuj Kumar, Rajkumari Asha Devi, Avinash Kumar and Vandana Thakur

Abstract

The current experiment was conducted on “Comparative studies on the effect of various biofertilizers growth, yield, and quality of carrot (Daucus carota L.)” at experimental field of School of Agriculture, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab. The experiment followed a Factorial Randomized Block Design (FRBD) with two factors: Variety and biofertilizers, in which eight treatment combinations were tested, which were Azospirillum + 50% RDF, PSB + 50% RDF, VAM + 50% RDF, Azospirillum + PSB + 50% RDF, Azospirillum + VAM + 50% RDF, PSB + VAM + 50% RDF, Azospirillum + VAM + PSB + 50% RDF, and a Control (100% RDF). Two carrot varieties, Pusa Meghali and Pusa Rudhira, were employed in the experiment. The crops were sown with a spacing of 45×15 cm² and replicated three times. The results of the experiment indicated that the application of 50% RDF + PSB + Azospirillum + VAM exhibited the most favorable outcomes in growth characteristics, including plant height (86.19 cm), number of leaves (17.30), roots fresh weight (57.64 g) and dry weight of root (7.88 g), root yield per plot (0.58 kg), root yield per hectare (1.92 t), carotene content (44.37 mg/100 g), and ascorbic acid (3.46 mg/100 g).