Evaluation of Pangasius pond sediment potentials in vegetable production as rooftop Bag Gardening

Abstract

An experimental research was carried out to assess the potential of Pangasius pond sediment (PPS) on the performance of yield and yield quality attributes of vegetable crop (BARIs tomato variety) grown in bag gardening system on rooftop under integrated aquaculture-horticulture approach. For this purpose, PPS chemical analysis, recording of plant morphological parameters and biochemical analysis of yield were performed. The plants were grown in 100% PPS =T₁; 50% PPS + 50% Virgin soil (VS) = T₂; and 60% VS + 40% Cowdung + 50g TSP + 50g MoP = T_3. To compare with PPS treated treatments, treatment T₃ was considered as control because it is a standard and recommended fertilizing dose of BARIs tomato production. The PPS sediments were collected from different aged ponds ranging from 1to 5 years Pangasius culture. The old PPS was used in bag gardening for the determination of soil physico-chemical, plant morpho-physiological and production parameters. All PPS in bags were belonged to silt loam in texture. The total nitrogen level was higher in T₁ where 100% PPS was used. The T₁ had the plant height 77.98 cm, number of leaves per plant 184.33, leaf area 622.49 cm², which were significantly (p<0.05) higher than T₂ and T₃. In the case of phenological development, onset of early flowering and fruiting was noticed in T₁, which was almost 1.5 weeks earlier than T₂ and 2 weeks than T₃. The reproductive characters like flowers per plant (28.67), weight of fruit per plant (53.78g) and fruit yield per bag (1945.74g) and total biomass of plants after harvesting (119.47g) were also significantly (p< 0.05) higher in T₁ followed by T₂ and T₃ (control). The numbers of branches per plant (29.54), number of clusters per plant (35.84) and fruits per cluster (5.10) were higher in T₁ than T₂ and T₃. The vitamin C content of tomato (28.26 mg %) was also significantly (p< 0.05) higher in T₁ followed by T₂ (24.67 mg %) and T₃ (21.28 mg %). The treatment T₁ showed the best performance followed by T₂ and T₃ (control). The perceived aquaculture waste of PPS had the high potential to grow vegetables with better production without any manure and chemical fertilizers. Therefore, PPS could reduce use of chemical fertilizers, especially urea which is environment friendly and less costly for vegetable production in bag gardening system.

J. Bangladesh Agril. Univ. 12(2): 397-404, December 2014