No abstract

An experiment was conducted during 2009-2011 at College of Agriculture, Vellayani to evaluate growth, productivity and economics of amaranthus as influenced by the performance of bio-organic composite manure along with microbial consortium. Organic sources used for the preparation of bio organic composite manures were coir pith compost, poultry manure, neem cake, groundnut cake, ash, rock dust and microbial consortium. Composite organic manures analyzing at least 3% N and N: K ratio of 1:0.5 was selected for further study. Five mixtures (OM3, OM5, OM9, OM11, 0M13) satisfying the selection criteria were identified for the investigation. The results of growth characters revealed that T1 (coir pith compost -50g, ground nut cake -35g and ash -15g) recorded the highest number of leaves per plant and highest dry matter production (25.6 plant -1 and 1481.92 kg ha -1 respectively) and highest leaf:stem ratio of 2.47 was registered in T5 (poultry manure-50g, ground nut cake -30g, rock dust-19g and microbial consortium -1g). Among the treatments maximum yield was obtained for the treatment T5 and it was on par with T1 and T2 (poultry manure-50g, ground nut cake -30g, rock dust-20g). The study on economics shows that T5 registering net returns of Rs 130800/-per ha was the most economical treatment with B:C ratio 2.2.