effect of seaweed liquid fertilizer (slf) prepared from sargassum wightii and hypnea musciformis on...

Effect of seaweed liquid fertilizer (SLF) prepared from Sargassum wightii and Hypnea musciformis on the growth and biochemical constituents of the pulse, Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L).

Keywords: Seaweed liquid fertilizer (SLF), Cyamopsis tetragonoloba, Sargassum wightii, Hypnea musciformis.

ABSTRACT: The effect of Seaweed Liquid Fertilizer (SLF) of Sargassum wightii and Hypnea musciformis were evaluated on the seedling growth and biochemical parameters of the pulse, Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L). The seeds of C. tetragonoloba soaked in SLF performed better when compared to the water soaked controls in terms of growth and certain biochemical attributes. The seeds were sown in soil and SLF were added to soil bed in four different concentrations separately (0.5%, 1%, 2% and 5% w/v). C. tetragonoloba seedlings showed positive response at 0.5% concentration of aqueous seaweed extracts in almost all the growth parameters studied. Similarly, a significant increase in the content of photosynthetic pigments and biochemical constituents such as soluble protein and starch was noted. The use of Sargassum and Hypnea extracts proved to be effective.

065-070 | JRA | 2012 | Vol 1 | No 1

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Journal of Research in

Agriculture An International Scientific

Research Journal

Authors:

Thambiraj J1, Lingakumar

K 2 and Paulsamy S3.

Institution:

1. Department of Botany,

Gobi Arts and Science

College, Gobichettipalayam -

638 453, India.


Ayya Nadar Janaki Ammal

College, Sivakasi- 626 124,

India.


Kongunadu Arts and Science

College, Coimbatore-

641 029, India.

Corresponding author:

Paulsamy S.

Email:

[email protected].

Web Address:

http://www.jagri.info

documents/AG0023.pdf.

Dates: Received: 03 Apr 2012 Accepted: 15 Apr 2012 Published: 23 Apr 2012

Article Citation: Thambiraj J, Lingakumar K and Paulsamy S. Effect of seaweed liquid fertilizer (SLF) prepared from Sargassum wightii and Hypnea musciformis on the growth and biochemical constituents of the pulse, Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L). Iournal of Research in Agriculture (2012) 1: 065-070

Original Research

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An International Scientific Research Journal

INTRODUCTION

The marine ecosystem is the treasure place for

many natural resources (Anandhan and Sorna kumari,

2011). Seaweeds are among the important marine living

resources with tremendous commercial application. In

recent times, seaweed extract have been used as

fertilizers. These extracts are commonly known as

Seaweed Liquid Fertilizer (SLF). Seaweeds have been

used as manure, cattle feed, food for human consumption

and as a source of phycocolloides such as agar, alginic

acid and carrageenan (Chapman, 1970). Seaweed

extracts as liquid fertilizers(SLF) has come in the market,

for the reason that they contain many growth promoting

hormones like auxins and gibberellins, trace elements

(Fe,Cu,Zn,Co,Mo,Mn,Ni), vitamins, aminoacids etc

(Challen and Hemingway, 1965). Thus, these extracts

when applied to seeds or when added to the soil,

stimulate the seed germination (Blunden, 1971).

Seaweed fertilizer was found to be superior to chemical

fertilizer because of high level of organic matter which

aids in retaining moisture and minerals in the upper soil

level available to the roots (Wallen Kemp, 1955).

Considering the above facts, the present investigation

was carried out to determine the effect of crude extracts

of Sargassum wightii and Hypnea musciformis on growth

and certain biochemical characteristics of the pulse,

Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Collection of Seaweeds

The seaweeds used in the present study were

Sargassum wightii and Hypnea musciformis belonging to

the classes Phaeophyceae and Rhodophyceae

respectively. They were collected from the coastal area

of Rameswaram, India (90 25’ N and 790 15’ E). The

algal species were hand picked and washed thoroughly

with seawater to remove all the unwanted impurities,

adhering sand particles and epiphytes. The thallus of two

algae was placed separately in new polythene bags and

were kept in an ice box containing slush ice and

transported to the laboratory. Then seaweeds were

washed thoroughly using tap water and maximum care

was taken to remove the salt and epiphytes on the surface

of the sample. The water was drained off and the algae

were spread on blotting paper to remove excess water.

Preparation of Seaweed Liquid Fertilizers

The two seaweeds were cut into small pieces

separately, and boiled with 1 liter of distilled water for an

hour and filtered. The filtrate was treated as 100%

concentration of the seaweed extract and from this,

different concentrations of seaweed liquid fertilizers

(SLF) (0.5%, 1%, 2% and 5%) were prepared using

distilled water (Bhosle et al., 1975). As the seaweed

liquid fertilizers contained organic matter, they were

refrigerated between 0 and 40 C.

Selection of Crop Plant

The crop plant, selected for the present study was

Cyamopsis tetragonoloba belonging to the family,

Fabaceae. The seeds were collected from Department of

Pulses, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore.

The seeds with uniform size, colour and weight were

chosen for the experimental purpose. The selected seeds

were stored in a metal tin (Rao, 1976).

Experiment

Five hundred seeds were soaked in water for 24

h. After soaking, they were divided into batches of 100

seeds each and were placed over filter paper kept in

petriplates. One batch of seeds was considered as the

control and they were watered with 10 ml of tap water.

The remaining four batches of seeds were separately

treated with 10 ml of 0.5%, 1%, 2% and 5% of SLF of

Sargassum wightii. After 24 h, the seeds were placed in

soil bed separately and the respective concentration of

SLF was added to the soil bed. Samples were taken from

each set after 30 days. Triplicates were maintained for

each seaweed.

The growth parameters such as shoot length, root

length, total fresh weight and total dry weight were

066 Journal of Research in Agriculture (2012) 1: 065-070

Thambiraj et al., 2012

calculated. The biochemical parameters such as total

chlorophyll and carotenoid were quantified by using the

method of Wellburn and Lichtenthaler (1984). The total

soluble protein content was analyzed by following the

method of Lowry et al. (1951). The content of starch was

estimated by ninhydrin assay method of Jayaraman

(1981). The activities of enzyme such as in vivo nitrate

reductase, catalase and peroxidase were estimated by the

following procedures of Jaworski (1971) Addy and

Goodman (1972) and Kar and Mishra (1976)

respectively.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The data of vegetative growth parameters as

influenced by different concentrations of seaweed liquid

fertilizers of Sargassum wightii and Hypnea musciformis

in the pulse, Cyamopsis tetragonoloba are presented in

Tables 1. It shows that the SLF of both seaweeds at

0.5% concentration are the most optimum for high

growth. The range of variation in this concentration

existing between 9.8 (SLF of Hypnea musciformis) and

11.9 cm (SLF of Sargassum wightii) for shoot length and

4.5 cm (SLF of H. musciformis) and 4.7 cm (SLF of S.

wightii) for root length. However for the seedling dry

weight, both SLF are influencing uniformly (ie) the dry

weight per seedling in 0.5% concentration was noted to

be 0.60 mg in both cases. The increased seedling growth

may be due to the presence of phenyl acetic acid (PAA)

and other closely related compounds (P-CH-PAA) in the

SLF (Taylor and Wilkinson, 1977) as well as the

presence of some growth promoting substances. The

growth enhancing potential of seaweeds might be

attributed to the presence of macro and micronutrients

(Challen and Hemingway, 1965). Another view is that

the wide range of trace elements or micronutrients

present in this seaweed extracts might also responsible

for enhanced growth (Aitken and Senn, 1965). Among

the two seaweed liquid fertilizers, S. wightii liquid

fertilizer yielded better results. The higher concentrations

showed a decreasing trend. Similar results were recorded

in Padina which induced maximum seedling growth at

lower concentrations in Cajanas cajan (Mohan et al.,

1994) Vigna radiate, Zea mays and Phaseolus mungo

(Lingakumar et al., 2004). Dhargalkar and Untawale

(1983) also reported similar findings with Hypnea

musciformis, Spatoglossum asperum, Stoechospermum

marginatum and Sargassum sp. on the vegetative growth

of crop plants like green chillies, turnips and pineapple.

The results of the study revealed that low concentration

(0.5% and 1%) of both seaweed extracts (SLF)

significantly enhanced the vegetative growth parameters

such as shoot length, root length and dry weight of the

seedlings.

The impact of seaweed extracts on certain

biochemical constituents of seedlings of Cyamopsis

tetragonoloba are presented in Table 2. The results of

the study showed that generally the attributes are

influenced significantly by different concentrations of

SLF of Sargassum wightii and Hypnea musciformis. The

lowest concentration of Sargassum wightii at 0.5%

Journal of Research in Agriculture (2012) 1: 065-070 067


Concentration

(%)

Shoot length (cm/ seedling) Root length (cm/ seedling) Dry weight (mg/ seedling)

SLF of

S. wightii

SLF of

H. musciformis

SLF of

S. wightii

SLF of

H. musciformis

SLF of

S. wightii

SLF of

H. musciformis

Control 8.44 ±0.09 8.44 ±0.09 3.1 ±0.20 3.1 ±0.20 0.41 ±0.03 0.41 ±0.03

0.5 11.9a ±0.28 9.8ab ±0.09 4.7ab ±0.12 4.5a ±.0.10 0.60cd ±0.03 0.60ab ±0.04

1 11.6a ±0.61 9.6ab ±0.41 3.9a ±0.12 4.1a ±0.16 0.58bc ±0.04 0.50a ±0.04

2 9.96a ±0.19 8.9ab ±0.74 3.6a ±0.71 3.8a ±0.41 0.55ab ±0.05 0.49a ±0.03

5 8.8a ±0.16 7.8a ±0.27 3.0a ±0.26 2.9a ±0.08 0.47a ±0.10 0.47a ±0.04

Table 1. Effect of sea weed liquid fertilizers (SLF) of Sargassum wightii and Hypnea musciformis

on growth parameters of Cyamopsis tetragonoloba.

Means in column followed by different letter are significant to each other at 5% level according to DMRT.

enhanced the total chlorophyll content of the pulse to

1.93 mg/g, soluble protein to 6.12 mg/g and starch to

3.02 mg/g. With the treatment of SLF of Hypnea

musciformis at 0.5% concentration, these attributes were

raised to 1.81 mg/g, 6.02 mg/g and 3.01 mg/g

respectively. Higher concentrations of both SLF

decreased the chlorophyll content. A similar kind of

observation was made in Scytonema sp. (Venkataraman

Kumar and Mohan, 1997a) and in Vigna mungo

(Venkataraman Kumar and Mohan, 1997b). Blunden et

al. (1996) observed that the seaweed extract applied as

foliar spray enhanced the leaf chlorophyll level in many

crop plants. The increase in the protein and starch

contents at lower concentration of SLF of both algae

might be due to absorption of most of the necessary

elements by the seedlings (Kannan and Tamilselvan,

1990; Anantharaj and Venkatesalu, 2001). The changes

in pH by the influence of higher concentration SLF may

retard the absorption of necessary elements in certain

species which may result in lower content of protein and

starch in that seedlings (Aitken and Senn, 1965).

Similar to growth and biochemical parameters,

the activity of the enzymes such as nitrate reductase,

catalase and peroxidase in the pulse, Cyamopsis

tetragonoloba were also determined to be highly

influenced by various concentrations of SLF of

Sargassum sp. and Hypnea sp. (Table 3). However, the

higher concentrations of SLF of both algae at 5%

significantly increased the catalase and peroxidase

activity (0.024 and 0.022 µ moles H2O2 /mg protein/min

respectively for catalase activity and 95.80 and 92.95 µ

moles H2O2 /mg protein /min respectively for peroxidase

activity). On the other hand, the in vitro nitrate reductase

activity was higher in the seedlings of the studied pulse

grown by the influence of lower concentration of 0.5%

SLF of both algae (1.26 and 1.24 µ moles/hr respectively

for SLF of S. wightii and H. musciformis). This

variation in activity may be due to species specific



Concentration

(%)

Total Chlorophyll (mg/g leaf

weight)

Soluble protein (mg/g leaf

fresh weight)

Starch (mg/g leaf fresh

weight)

SLF of

S. wightii

SLF of

H. musciformis

SLF of

S. wightii

SLF of

H. musciformis

SLF of

S. wightii

SLF of

H. musciformis

Control 1.424 ±0.004 1.424 ±0.004 4.62 ±0.060 4.62 ±0.060 2.15 ±0.01 2.15 ±0.01

0.5 1.927cd ±0.003 1.809a ±0.004 6.12c ±0.14 6.02c ±0.08 3.02b ±0.21 3.01b ±0.08

1 1.730bc ±0.005 1.633a ±0.003 5.82b ±0.05 5.70b ±0.10 2.90a ±0.24 2.85a ±0.21

2 1.618ab ±0.002 1.481a ±0.004 5.21b ±0.02 5.11b ±0.41 2.64a ±0.12 2.52a ±0.41

5 1.441a ±0.001 1.313a ±0.004 4.21a ±0.01 4.42a ±0.20 2.08a ±0.04 2.10a ±0.16

Table 2. Effect of sea weed liquid fertilizers (SLF) of Sargassum Wightii and Hypnea musciformis on

chlorophyll content and certain biochemical constituents in Cyamopsis tetragonoloba.


Table 3. Effect of sea weed liquid fertilizers (SLF) of Sargassum Wightii and Hypnea musciformis on

certain enzymatic activity in the seedlings of Cyamopsis tetragonoloba.

Concentration

(%)

In vivo nitrate reductase

(µ moles /hr) Catalase activity

(µ moles H2O2 /mg protein /min)

Peroxidase activity (µ moles H2O2/mg protein /min)

SLF of

S. wightii

SLF of

H. musciformis

SLF of

S. wightii

SLF of

H. musciformis

SLF of

S. wightii SLF of

H. musciformis

Control 0.93 ±0.01 0.93 ±0.01 0.018 ±0.02 0.018 ±0.02 65.80 ±0.12 65.80 ±0.12

0.5 1.26b ±0.20 1.24b ±0.16 0.017c ±0.01 0.016b ±0.01 76.50b ±0.14 61.97a ±0.56

1 1.18b ±0.04 1.13b ±0.04 0.019c ±0.10 0.019b ±0.04 82.16c ±0.89 80.63bc ±0.61

2 1.08b ±0.18 1.04b ±0.12 0.021d ±0.04 0.021c ±0.10 91.74de ±0.99 85.42c ±0.18

5 0.89a ±0.02 0.86a ±0.06 0.024d ±0.06 0.022c ±0.14 95.80f ±0.29 92.95d ±0.93


requirement of certain vitamins (Anantharaj and

Venkatesalu, 2002). The similar trends of results were in

the Sargassum sp. liquid fertilizer treated seedlings of Z.

mays and P. mungo and Ulva lactuca liquid fertilizer

treated seedlings of Cyamopsis tetragonoloba and

Phaseolus mungo (Lingakumar et al., 2004 and 2006).

CONCLUSION

A holistic approach on the effectiveness of seaweeds

viz., S. wightii and H. musciformis in the present study as

evidenced by the increase in physiological and yield

attributes could be related to growth promoter mediated

reactions leading to higher nutrient uptake, resulting in

higher yield. Hence, this simple practice of application of

ecofriendly seaweed liquid fertilizers to the pulse

Cyamopsis tetragonoloba is recommended to the

growers for attaining better germination, growth and

yield.

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