Investigation on Efficacy of Azolla with Different Organic Fertilizers as Plant Growth Enhancer on Chili (Var.Super)

Chili is one of the widely used spices all around the world. Over usage of inorganic fertilizer to satisfy ever growing demand for food leads to detrimental impacts on human health and environment. Therefore, this study was intended to investigate the efficiency of azolla with different organic fertilizer on growth and yield of chili, variety Super. A field experiment was carried out with five different treatments, T1-Azolla+Compost, T2-Azolla+Vermicompost, T3- Azolla+Panchagowvya, T4-Azolla+Vermitea, and T5-Control with five replicates and laid in randomized complete block design. The prepared organic fertilizers were applied from two weeks of transplanting and continued for 12 weeks in one week interval. Then the growth parameter such as mean plant height, number of leaves per plant, leaf width, number of flowers, pod length, pod diameter, pod weight and total yield were measured in different time duration according to the type of measurement. According to the results, T2 showed better performance in terms of mean plant height (45 cm), number of leaves per plant (43 cm), leaf width (2.8 cm), pod length (4.34 cm), individual pod weight (6.94 g), and total yield (176.8 g) whereas comparatively lower performance was observed in control. Considering the significant differences recorded in the statistical analysis for all the parameters other than the mean number of flowers, it can be concluded that the application of Azolla solution with vermicompost improves the growth performance and yield of chili. Therefore, it is recommended to adapt this combination as an organic fertilizer among the farmers to reduce the usage of inorganic fertilizers. Keywords: Azolla solution, Demand, Growth parameters, Inorganic fertilizer