Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

STUDIES ON IRRIGATION AND NUTRIENT SCHEDULES ON GROWTH, YIELD AND QUALITY IN COLEUS (PLECTRANTHUS BARBATUS BRIQ.)

Y.S. Praneeth, A.P. Mallikarjuna Gowda, M.N. Thimmegowda, K. Umesha and D. Hareesh

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted for “Standardization of irrigation and nutrient schedule for drip fertigation in coleus” at College of Horticulture, UHS Campus, GKVK (Po), Bengaluru. The experiment was laid out in Factorial concept with Randomized Block Design (RBD) with three replications. Treatments comprising of combination of three drip irrigation Viz., 0.9 IW/CPE (I1), 0.7 IW/CPE (I2) and 0.5 IW/CPE (I3) ratio regimes and three fertigation schedules, fertigation up to 4 months (F1), fertigation up to 5 months (F2), and with soil application as per recommended dosage (F3). Among drip irrigation regimes, irrigation at 0.7 IW/CPE recorded taller plants, higher number of branches, leaf area, tubers per plant (25.0), tuber diameter (3.9 cm) tuber length (21.8 cm) and tuber yield (4.45 t ha-1) and it was on par with irrigation at 0.9 IW/CPE ratio. The total forskolin content was maximum with 0.5 IW/CPE ratio (0.86%). Among the fertigation schedules, plant height, number of branches, leaf area, number of tubers per plant (25.5), maximum tuber diameter (3.9 cm), tuber length (21.3 cm), and higher dry tuber yield (4.42 t ha-1) was recorded with fertigation twice a week up to 5 months.