Effect of growing media on seedling growth of Kokum (Garcinia indica Choisy)

Abstract

Kokum (Garcinia indica Choisy) is one of the native underexploited tree spices mostly found in Konkan region of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Surat district of Gujarat on the West Coast of India (Haldankar et al., 2012 and Braganza et al., 2012). Only way to propagate is by softwood grafting method. The growth of seedling is slow and requires more than year to attained graftable height. Availability of strong and vigorous seedling as a rootstock plays vital role in the success of nursery programme. With a view to hasten the growth of seedling in order to get strong and vigorous seedling as rootstock at early stage of growth an experiment on effect of growing media on seedling growth of Kokum (Garcinia indica Choisy) was undertaken at Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture, Dapoli, Dist. Ratnagiri 415 712 (M.S.) during the year 2018. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design with six treatments and four replications. The treatment comprises T1: Soil + FYM (3:1) with 1” Cocopeat at top, T2: Soil + Vermicompost (3:1) with 1” Cocopeat at top, T3: Soil + FYM + Vermicompost (2:1:1) with 1” Cocopeat at top, T4: Soil + FYM + Rice husk (1:1:1) with 1”Cocopeat at top, T5: Soil + FYM + Vermicompost + Cocopeat (1:1:1:1) and T6: Soil + FYM (1:1). Results revealed that treatment T6 i. e. Soil + FYM at 1:1 proportion recorded maximum height (33.93 cm), girth (4.15 mm), number of leaves (26.53), seedling survival percentage (97.50%) at 360 DAB. Similarly media containing Soil + FYM at 1:1 proportion recorded the highest percentage of graftable seedlings (83.25%) at earliest of 240 days after transplanting in polybag.