Impact of Vermicompost on Soil Fertility and Crop Productivity of Mulberry

Abstract

Vermi-compost amendments in soil had a positive impact on soil physio-chemical properties, leaf yield & quality as well as suppresses of foliar diseases in mulberry plant. A two years’ field experiment was conducted in the experiment field at Bangladesh Sericulture Research and Training Institute (BSTRI), Rajshahi, Bangladesh to examine the effect of vermi-compost on soil properties, growth, leaf yield and quality as well as severity of foliar diseases of mulberry plant. This study consisted of 4 treatments: T₀ = control, T₁ = basal dose of N₃₀₀P₁₅₀K₁₀₀ kg/ha/year, T₂ = only 5 MT vermicompost/ha/year and T₃ = 5 MT vermi-compost/ha/year + basal dose of N₃₀₀P₁₅₀K₁₀₀ kg/ha/year. Results showed that the combined application of 5 MT vermicompost/ha/year + BSRTI recommend basal dose of N₃₀₀P₁₅₀K₁₀₀ kg/ha/year exposed better growth, leaf yield and quality of mulberry plant followed by T₂, T₁ and T₀ treatments respectively. Between the two cropping years the maximum leaf yield was 50.40 MT/ha/year in 2^nd year crop which was 73.25% greater than the maximum leaf yield of control. The leaf quality viz: moisture (%), soluble carbohydrate (%), total chlorophyll (mg/g), crude protein (%), mineral (%) and total sugar (%) were also 8.59, 34.27, 31.75, 23.32, 31.45 and 38.29 percentage respectively greater in 2^nd year for the same fertilizer management over the control treatment. Furthermore, the soil physio-chemical properties viz: OC, N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Na, Mn, Cu and Zn except soil pH content were increased in 2^nd year than the 1^st year soil with maximum suppress of foliar diseases viz: leaf spot, powdery mildew, tukra and leaf rust in 2^nd year for the treatment of T₃. This study concluded that utilization of vermi-compost improves soil fertility, leaf productivity, leaf quality of mulberry plant and reduce the foliar diseases with the respect to cropping year.