Shading and Vegetable-Bread-Fish Waste Compost Effects on Growth and Yield of Field Grown Andrographis Paniculata

Abstract

Medicinal herb production has become more challenging nowadays as it is demanded, as far as possible, to avoid chemical fertilizers and other agrochemicals for higher quality of the produce. The present study was a split plot experiment conducted to examine the effect of shading and application of compost derived from dumped brassica vegetable-dumped or expired bread-fish gill and internal organ (3:2:1) wastes towards growth and yield of Andrographis paniculata grown in open field as alternative to conventional organic fertilizers in current market. Main plots were plots of full sunlight and 50% relative light intensity (RLI) as achieved by commercial 50% shade netting. Within each main plot, sub plots of treatments at 0 g compost + 5 g nitrophoska (NPK) green/plant, 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100 g compost/plant, respectively, were laid out at random. Fertilization was carried out only once throughout the production period of eight weeks. Each sub plot treatment was replicated four times, each with three plants per replicate. Results indicated that plant grown under full sunlight combined with application of 100 g compost/plant, or 3 tonnes compost/hectare at 30,000 plants/hectare, was the best, especially in production of leaves as its main economic plant part for the herbal industries. Such inorganic fertilizer free plants were better than the recommended inorganic 5 g NPK green /plant or at a rate of 150 kg/hectare fertilization in production of this medicinal plant.