Plant Growth Promoting Effect of Seaweeds Collected from East Coast of Tamil Nadu, India

Radhakrishnan Muthezhilan¹*, Kuzhandaivel Jayaprakash¹, Chermapandi Parthiban², and A. Ajmath Jaffar Hussain³

¹Department of Marine Biotechnology, AMET University (U/S of UGC Act 1956) Kanathur, Chennai 603112, India. ²Centre for Advanced Study in Marine Biology, Annamalai University, Parangipettai – 608 502, India. ³Centre for Marine Bioprospecting, AMET University (U/S of UGC Act 1956) Kanathur, Chennai - 603112, India.

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.13005/bbra/1391

ABSTRACT: The continuous use of chemical fertilizers in agriculture field is highly toxic to the nature and also disturbs the soil living beneficial microorganisms. Seaweeds are well known commercially available marine plants and it has many eco-friendly applications. Thus the present study was carried out develop a plant growth promoting seaweed liquid fertilizer (SLF) for agricultural crop plants. In this study commercially available eight different seaweeds such as Ulva fasciata, Enteromorpha intestinalis, Dictyota dichotoma, Sargassum wightii, Padina boergesenii, Amphiroa anceps, Avanthopleura spicifera and Spyridia hypnoides, were collected from the rocky shore areas of Mandapam Coast, Rameshwaram District, Tamil Nadu, India. The eight different seaweed liquid fertilizer (SLF) was prepared to determine their plant growth promoting ability in agriculturally important crop plants such as, Green gram, Black gram, Mustard and Paddy by seed germination and soil drenching methods in both sterilized and unsterilized soil at laboratory scale experimental setups. In seed germination assay, 100% germination was observed in seeds soaked with Sargassum wightii, Padina boergesenii and Ulva fasciata. In soil treatment and plant culture study after 15 days of sowing the root length, shoot length and fresh weight of all the seedlings were recorded in all the setups. In that, Sargassum wightii, Padina boergesenii and Ulva fasciata seaweed liquid fertilizer (SLF) have shown the maximum plant growth promoting activity in unsterilized soil than the sterilized soil. The results were well demonstrated the effect of seaweed liquid fertilizer (SLF) in plant growth promotion and suggested to use this fertilizer to enhance the profitability in agricultural field.

KEYWORDS: Seaweed Liquid Fertilizer (SLF); Seed germination; Soil drenching; Plant Growth Promotion

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.