Organic Fertilizers Effect on Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) Tuber Production in Sandy Loam Soil

Abstract

Potatoes are one of the most common and important vegetable crops in the world and carrying different health benefits that make them all the more essential as a staple dietary item for much of the world’s population. The high nutrient content, ability to adapt to marginal environments, relative ease of cultivation and low cost and high productivity are attributes that make potatoes one of the principal and most important sources of food and income for developing countries. Considering the importance of organic manure for potato cultivation, the experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of four organic fertilizers on potato tuber production in sandy loam soil. The most popular and easily available two potato cultivars namely Cardinal and Diamant and four organic fertilizers viz., cowdung at the rate of 8 t ha-1, chicken manure at the rate of 8 t ha-1, Rangpur Dinajpur Rural Service (RDRS) developed organic fertilizer at the rate of 740 kg ha-1 and Northern organic fertilizer at the rate of 500 kg ha-1 along with a control. The results revealed that the plant height, number of leaves, leaves fresh weight, yield contributing characters and yield were significantly different and higher in organic fertilizers over control. The highest plant height, leaf number, leaf fresh weight, total dry matter, absolute growth rate, tuber growth rate, tubers plant-1 and larger tuber size were observed in chicken manure which resulted the highest tuber yield (29.71 t ha-1) followed by cowdung (28.67 t ha-1) with same statistical rank. The third highest tuber yield was recorded in RDRS organic fertilizer (26.42 t ha-1) and Northern organic fertilizer (26.00 t ha-1). Besides, the potato cultivar, cardinal gave the highest tuber yield (26.39 t ha-1) compare to diamont (24.57 t ha-1). Finally, the potato cultivar cardinal and organic fertilizers, chicken manure followed by cowdung are recommended for potato cultivation in Rangpur region due to the highest yield production as well as maximum benefit-cost ratio.

Performance of Different Organic Manures With Chemical Fertilizers in Increasing Growth, Yield and Nutritional Quality of Potato (Solanum Tuberosum L.)

“…Growth and yield enhancement of potato crop such as increased plant height, number of branches, number of tuber, weight and yield of tuber etc. from combined manure and fertilizer application were also reported by many researchers (Jaipaul et al 2011, Venkatasalam et al 2012, Balemi 2012, Amara and Mourad 2013, El-Sayed et al 2014, Ahmadiet al 2014, Shaheen et al 2014, Suh et al 2015, Masrie et al 2015, Hafez et al 2017, Koireng et al 2018, Bekele et al 2018, Ahmed et al 2019. The results of the present experiments are either fully or partially accorded to the above mentioned comparable studies.…”

Response of Two Potato Cultivars to Organic Fertilization and Potassium Foliar Application

“…The increase due to the animal compost may be attributed to its role in improving chemical, physical and microbial properties of the soil that increases absorption of water and utilization of nutrients and thus vegetative growth parameters if potato, also, animal compost may give balance micro and macronutrients just as upgraded accessibility of plant nutrients, which would assist with upgrading the metabolic activity of microorganisms and improvement of plant growth. This results are in agreement with the findings of other researchers who observed that animal compost increased growth of potato (Ahmed et al 2019;Alemayehu et al 2020;.…”

Impact of Crop Sequence and Fertilization on Potato Yield in a Long-Term Study

“…The positive effect of manure used combined with mineral fertilization on potato yielding was confirmed in many previous studies [ 42 , 43 , 44 ]. Beneficial effect of manure on the content of organic matter contributes to increasing water retention, reducing soil erosion and improving the physicochemical and biological properties of the soil [ 45 ].…”