Effect of different concentrations of commercial seaweed liquid extract of Ascophyllum nodosum as a plant bio stimulant on growth, yield and biochemical constituents of onion (Allium cepa L.)

Abstract

Seaweed extracts are inexpensive source of naturally occurring plant growth regulators which have greater potential as biostimulants in agriculture. The endogenous plant growth regulators present in the seaweed extracts and concentrates are thought to be involved in the promoting plant growth and yield. Present study examined the effect of seaweed liquid extracts of Ascophyllum nodosum as a plant biostimulant on growth and yield of onion. Six treatments are allocated randomly with four replications using RBD viz. T0- Control(0.00%), T1- (0.35%), T2- (0.45%), T3- (0.55%), T4- (0.65%) and T5- (0.75%). On the basis of present investigation, it may be concluded that treatment recieving 0.55% was found to be the best treatment in terms of leaf number (9.08/plant), plant height (55.20cm/plant),Crop growth rate (33.65g/m2/day), fresh bulb diameter (5.13cm/plant),bulb fresh weight (120.21g/plant), harvest index (77.44%), chlorophyll ‘a’ (0.81mg/g), chlorophyll ‘b’ (0.58mg/g), carotenoid content (0.61mg/g), bulb sulphur content (1.80ppm), bulb protein content (1.19mg/g) and leaf protein content (0.46mg/g).While the higher concentration of the extract shows decreasing trend. Our study provide important information on optimization of seaweed liquid extracts on onion crop.