Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
mance showed by vermicompost and chemical fertilizer and to observe
the position of vermicompost in respect of functional status of both the
chemical fertilizer and vermicompost.
4.2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
4.2.1 PLANT MATERIAL
The species
Callistephus chinensis
L. (Asteraceae) was selected as experi-
mental tool. The purified seeds of the species were collected from the Na-
tional Seed Corporation in Paschim Medinipur District of the State West
Bengal. The seeds were sown and grown in the Experimental Garden. The
plant is herbaceous, annual, seasonal flowering winter crop and has high
commercial potentiality in India and abroad.
4.2.2 LOCATIONS AND EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
Field experiments were established at the experimental Garden of Raja
Narendralal Khan Womens College, Midnapore, West Bengal, India
(21°47¢ North latitude and 87°42¢ East longitude) during Jan to Mar of
five consecutive years 2007-2010 (30). The present investigation was car-
ried out under the agro ecological sub region of Eastern Plateau, hot dry
and sub humid ecosystem with red and lateritic soils.
Five experimental sets like T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5 with three replicas
of each set were done. The container of each experimental set was poly-
thene bag of 250 mm in diameter and 250 mm in height. Each bag was
fi lled up with 4 kg. of soil. The T1 set was as control fi lled up with soil
only. The T2 set was fi lled up with 4 kg soil and 1.5g chemical fertilizer,
the T3 set with 4 kg soil and 7.5 g vermicompost, the T4 set with 4 kg soil
and 3g chemical fertilizer and T5 set with 4 kg soil and 15g vermicompost
were prepared. The chemical fertilizer was DAP and its NPK value was
10:26:26. The vermicompost was procured from the Agriculture Depart-
ment of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India and it had
NPK value of 2:1:1.
