Abstract
An in-vivo experiment was conducted to study the effect of organic and inorganic fertilizers on the growth, yield and fruit quality of eggplant (Solanum melongena L.). Fertilizer induced variability of Solanum melongena studied based on the data collected from seven treatments of organic and inorganic fertilizers. The variability was analyzed based on twenty-nine characters. Organic fertilizers such as vermicompost, groundnut cake and bonemeal; chemical fertilizers such as NPK 16:16:16 and NPK 10:5:20 and urea were used for the experiment. The plant only with potting mixture treated as standard. Application of fertilizer and harvesting of fruits for biometrical observation was carried out at the regular interval. The mean was calculated. Coefficients of variation of twenty-nine agronomic characters of the brinjal under different treatments explained that significant variation existed in all the characters. The characters studied include growth characters such as days to the first flower, days to first harvest, plant height, plant stem circumference, number of branches per plant, number of leaves, length of leaf lamina, breadth of leaf lamina, length of leaf petiole, petiole circumference, leaf area; yield characters like the number of fruits per plant, fruit length, fruit girth, length of fruit stalk, breadth of fruit stalk, fresh weight of fruit, cluster per plant, number of flowers, fresh weight of plant; quality characters of total carbohydrate, protein, vitamin C, crude fibre, total mineral, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, acidity. Among all six fertilizers applied in the experiment, organic treatments like vermicompost and groundnut cake gave better growth, yield and quality characters than inorganic fertilizers and vermicompost gave the highest results for ten characters. Groundnut cake gave the best results for thirteen characters. Following these two organic fertilizers, urea has some contribution to growth and yield. Among the characters studied, the highest variability was shown by cluster per plant (70.71%) and the lowest by potassium (0.04%), as shown by the coefficient of variation. Characters such as number of branches per plant (48.97%), number of fruits per plant (38.73%) and number of leaves (24.39%) also showed a comparatively high percentage of variability. In contrast, characters such as total carbohydrate, vitamin C, calcium, potassium showed a relatively low percentage of variability. Cluster per plant exhibited the highest value of variation in standard condition, whereas the lowest value in NPK 10:5:20.