Response of organic manures to the growth of onion cultivars in Peshawar valley

of organic


Introduction
Onion (Allium cepa L.) is one of the important vegetable crops, belongs to family Amaryllidaceae and sub family Allioideae.It is cultivated in the world widely especially in Asia.Onion is grown in Pakistan as commercially vegetable crop.The onion (Allium cepa L.) is used on daily basis as a condiment either as mature bulb in salad and also for preparation of other different dishes or as green leaves [1] Onion is cool season crop and it is also biennial, cross pollinated crop mostly and shallow rooted crop.The onion produced wide range of bulbs depending on the varieties.The bulbs having various sizes such as small, medium and large and also having different colors i.e. white, yellow and red and also different shapes such as flattened, round and globular.The onion is categorized in short days and long days which is dependent on day length requirement.[2].The pungency in the bulb is presence due to the volatile oil (allyl propyl disulphide) [3].Onion is grown on different types of soil but they grown best on fertile soil which contain humus and also well drained.In high acidity condition it is very sensitive and produces more yield with optimum pH range (5.8-6.5).It is grown in other types of soil also such as clay, sandy loams and mucks.Onion seedlings are transplanted to the field by keeping the row to row distance (30cm and plant to plant distance (15cm).In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the onion total average yield is (16.6)tons per hectare and area of cultivation in KP is (11.1)hectare with a production of (187.5)tons [4].Onion is a high valued cash crop next to chili due to high cost of production.Presently it price are high and consumers cannot affordable it and there are so many problems in marketing to the farmers and they do not have better profits from its cultivation.Another reason is that farmers also paid more prices for buying fertilizers.Normally excessive amount of chemical fertilizers are applied to vegetables crops for more production [5].Whenever chemical fertilizers applied to soil it produce several harmful effects to human health and also to environmental condition [6].Soil structure affected by more usage of inorganic fertilizers, therefore organic manures used as alternative to chemical fertilizers for improving soil structure [7].The organically and inorganically fertilized plants were both had higher uptakes of N, P and K then unfertilized plants [8].Organic manures i.e.Spent mushroom compost which contains materials such as humus, essentials Nutrients in different amounts i.e.Nitrogen 0.7%, phosphorus 0.3% and potassium 0.3%.By adding spent mushroom compost increase the pH of soil because it is alkaline in nature due to presence of chalk content [9].The nutrients are very important for the production and quality of onion and by continuous use of inorganic fertilizers many problems produced that are scarcity of micronutrients, imbalance in soil physical and chemical properties and unsustainable crop production.By this reason the farmers started organic farming systems in which no use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides [10].Organic manures enhance the different properties of soil i.e. physical, chemical and biological and also increase the moisture holding capacity of soil which resulted more in maintaining the quality of crop production and crop production [11].The organic fertilizers hold plant nutrients which promote enzymes and hormones, besides plant nutrients make them necessary for enhancement of soil fertility and production [12].Before using organic manures we should want to check it by different ways.To avoid using fresh manure of animals that contains different pathogens this harmful to plants.To kill pathogens that present in compost manure and to applied the manure in best time to avoid excessive leaching and runoff [13].Organic manure and bio fertilizers mixture increased the yield and provide more nutrients to onion tuber [14].The growers got more profit by organic farming system.In organic farming less cost of production required and it is reduce the chance of environmental pollution.It is also improved the soil structure, enhance different activities of soil organisms which are useful to plants.The vegetables and fruits etc produced by organic farming are good for human health [15].Keeping the above points in view the research study was conducted at Horticulture Research Farm, The University of Agriculture Peshawar, to know the importance of different organic manures on onion cultivars.

Materials and methods
An experiment was conducted to study "Effect of organic manures on the growth of onion cultivars at Peshawar valley" at Horticulture Research Farm, The University of Agriculture Peshawar, to find out the optimum source of organic manure for the better growth of onion cultivars.

Preparation of organic media
For the preparation of organic media the organic materials were collected from different centers such as poultry manure from poultry farm, spent mushroom compost from mushroom research centre and farmyard manure from Diary Farm situated in the University of Agriculture Peshawar.Seven different media were prepared, firstly prepared three media of farmyard manure (FYM), poultry manure (PM) and spent mushroom compost (SMC) alone at the rate of 10 tons ha -1 .The four different mixtures of organic media were also made at the rate of 10 tons ha -1 i.e. ½FYM + ½PM, ½FYM + ½SMC, ½PM + ½SMC and 1 /3FYM + 1 /3PM + 1 /3SMC.The organic manures were applied the field about one month before the transplantation of onion seedlings.The organic manures were mixed in the soil of the plot of field.The recommended level of NPK i.e. half level of nitrogen at rate of (60 kg ha -1 ), phosphorous at rate of (90 kg ha - 1 ) and potassium at rate of (60 kg ha -1 ) were applied to the control treatment while half of nitrogen @ 60 kg ha -1 was applied after seedlings transplantation.After these practices the seedlings of onion cultivars were transplanted in the field.

Experimental design
The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with split plot arrangement.The treatments were 24 and all treatments replicated three times.The following is the detail of treatments of the experiment (Table 1).

Soil analysis
For soil analysis the soil samples were collected randomly from three different location of experimental field at the depth of 25 cm before organic fertilizers application, the Physio-chemical analysis was tested in soil department of the Agriculture University of Peshawar.

Variables
Data was recorded on the following variables.

Survival percentage (%)
The data was recorded by counting the plants in each sub-plot of experiment which survived after transplantation by following formula; Survival percentage=(Number of plants survived)/(Total number of transplanted plants)×100

Number of leaves plant -1
The number of leaves plant -1 was noted and means were calculated by selecting five plants randomly from each plot in each replication.

Leaf length (cm)
The leaf length was measured in centimeters by the help of measuring tape of the leaf by selecting five plants from each plot randomly.

Neck height (cm)
The neck height was calculated by measuring tape from the bulb top surface to the point where leaves were start to separate of five randomly selected plants from each plot in each replication and the average was calculated.

Plant height (cm)
The data regarding with plant height was measured in centimeters at the end of the growing seasons that is at harvesting by measuring tape by selecting five plants randomly from each plot in each replication and means were calculated.

Leaf width (cm)
The leaf width was calculated manually with a ruler of the selected plants from each plot in each replication and the average of leaf width plant -1 was calculated.

Statistical Procedure
The data regarding with different variables were allotted to the statistical variance of analysis to observe the variation between different treatments and also to know the effect of interaction on onion crop.The data related with number of leaves plant - 1 is presented in (Table 2, 3 & 4).The organic manures, onion cultivars had significantly affected the number of leaves plant -1 of onion cultivars but the interaction had nonsignificantly affected.The organic manures significantly affect the number of leaves plant -1 of onion cultivars.The more number of leaves plant -1 (16.2) was observed in plant applied organic media (poultry manure) followed by number of leaves plant -1 (11.4) in plant received organic media (farmyard manure + poultry manure (1:1).By contrast control treatment showed minimum number of leaves plant -1 (8.9).Among onion cultivars the more number of leaves plant -1 (12.3) was observed in cultivar (Parachinar-Local), followed by cultivar (Swat-1) with number of leaves per plant (11.4).The less number of leaves plant -1 (10.7) was recorded in cultivar (swat local).Organic manures especially poultry manure gave more nutrients to the plants which increase the vegetative growth of onion plants and thus produce more number of leaves per plants.The research results were supported by [20] who concluded that he organic manures enhanced the vegetative attributes of sweet pepper plants.The nitrogenous organic fertilizers @120 kg/ha improved the number of leaves plant -1 at early stage, but more application of fertilizers @160 kg/ha minimized the number of leaves plant -1 [21].The same results were also noted in cabbage cultivars that the maximum number of leaves per plants was obtained with the organic manures application [22].

Leaf length (cm)
The leaf length data is given in ( .[38]Reported the poultry along with vermin compost improve the growth and yield parameters of okra.Organic manures showed significant effect on the plant height and number of fruits per plant in chilli crop [39].

Leaf width (cm)
The leaf width was affected significantly by the application of organic manures and onion cultivars while its interaction had nonsignificantly affected the leaf width (Table 5).The maximum leaf width (1.3cm) was measured in plants which received poultry manure @ 10 tons/ ha, as par as the leaf width (1.2cm) was observed in plants which received organic media ½Farmyard manure + ½poultry manure at rate of 10 tons/ha.The minimum leaf width (0.73cm) was noticed in plants with control treatment.Onion cultivars had significantly affected leaf width.The cultivar Parachinar-Local showed maximum leaf width (1.06cm) as compared with cultivar Swat-1 with leaf width (0.93cm), while the minimum leaf width (0.92cm) was noted in cultivar Swat-Local.
The onion cultivars Parachinar-Local gave more leaf width as compared with other onion cultivars, may be the reason is that the onion cultivars had different genetic character than other cultivars.The variation occurred in the genetic makeup of the cultivars and also the environmental condition which affect the leaf width of some cultivars and gave less leaf width.Poultry manures improved the leaf width of onion crop, the poultry manures provide more nitrogen to the plants which increased the vegetative growth of the plants and more leaf width observed in the plants.Similar results presented by [40] who noticed that the organic fertilizers affect significantly the leaf width of onion crop as compared with chemical fertilizers.[24,41] reported that the poultry manure along with vermin compost enhanced the leaf growth and leaf area more as compared with inorganic fertilizers in okra and radish.

Conclusion and recommendations
From the result it is concluded that the application of organic manures and onion cultivars significantly affected the growth of onion.Poultry manure improved the survival percentage , number of leaves plant-1, leaf A Manure Resource Guide for farmers and gardeners in western Washington.