Pandey, Sunita T.Yadav, Rahul2021-01-282021-01-282020-11https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810160676A field experiment was conducted during the Kharif season of 2019 at Medicinal Plants Research and Development Centre (MRDC) of G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, District Udham Singh Nagar, India to study the effect of fermented organic liquid manures (jeevamrit and kunapajala) on growth and herbage yield of Sweet Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.). The experiment was laid out in Randomised Block Design (RBD) with 8 treatments replicated thrice. The experimental soil was sandy clay loam in texture, neutral in reaction, medium in organic carbon (0.68%), low in available nitrogen ( 186.60 kg ha-1) and medium in phosphorus (18.90 kg ha-1) and potassium (201.23 kg ha-1). A comparative study between natural, organic and inorganic farming was done through the treatments i.e. T1: Recommended dose of fertilizer (RDF) (120:60:40) kg/ha, T2: 15 t/ha farmyard manure (FYM), T3: 500 litres/ha kunapajala, T4: 1000 litres/ha kunapajala, T5: 500 litres/ha kunapajala + 7.5 t/ha FYM, T6: 500 litres/ha jeevamrit, T7: 1000 litres/ha jeevamrit, T8: 500 litres/ha jeevamrit+ 7.5 t/ha FYM. The results revealed that the application of fermented liquid manures had significant effect on the yield and yield attributes like plant height, No. of branches, leaf-stem ratio, fresh and dry weight. It was found that treatment T1 i.e. RDF (N120:P60:K40) gave significantly higher fresh herbage yield (271.86 q ha-1 ) and oil yield (143.33 kg ha-1 ) and was statistically at par with treatment T8 i.e. 500 litres/ha jeevamrit+ 7.5 t/ha FYM (256.07 q ha-1 and 138.54 kg ha-1 respectively) and T5 i.e. 500 litres/ha kunapajala + 7.5 t/ha FYM (244.03 q ha-1 and 129.47 kg ha-1 respectively). Organic liquid manure (jeevamrit and kunapajala) are rich bioformulation which contains consortia of beneficial microbes. The highest total microbial population (34.01×104 CFU/g) was obtained with T8 i.e. 500 litres/ha jeevamrit+ 7.5 t/ha FYM which was followed by T2 i.e. 15 t/ha FYM (30.07×104 CFU/g) in soil after harvest. The essential oil content was non significantly affected due to various treatments however T8 recorded numerically higher oil content (0.60%). Jeevamrit combined with FYM (7.5 t ha-1) was superior to FYM (15 t ha-1) alone with respect to fresh herbage and oil yield (28%, 37% respectively increase over recommended FYM). However, soil analysis showed that the inorganic treatment (RDF) did not enhance the soil organic carbon (SOC) content. Initially the SOC was 0.68% which later increased to 0.69% in RDF (due to lack of soil rejuvenation). The incredible results of liquid manures are because it contains significant amount of macro and micronutrients, vitamins and essential amino acid. It also contains plant growth promoting substances like indole acetic acid (IAA) and gibberelic acid (GA). Liquid manures being a product of natural farming can be taken as a stellar alternative since chemical fertilizers inadvertently affect the environment by contaminating it through eutrophication and causing health hazards. Through this investigation it can be concluded that fermented liquid manure improves soil sustainability and biodiversity by increasing the population of soil microbes which mineralize the nutrients in soil and make them available to the plants. 500 litres/ha jeevamrit + 7.5 t/ha FYM, gave higher net returns and hence, can be considered as a better substitute to the spendy chemical fertilizers and bulky organic manures.EnglishThesis