Seedling vigour of Prosopis cineraria (L.) in response to different growth media and polybag sizes in arid climatic conditions

Abstract

Prosopis cineraria is a multipurpose tree of Thar desert with immense significance in sustaining the livelihoods of people. Successful tree growing in dry arid conditions necessitates development of vigorous seedlings. For faster and successful raising of healthy and uniform seedlings growing media and container sizes are more critical factors. With aim to find suitable polybag size and the growing media for faster and healthy seedling production, a repetitive study was carried out in 2014 and 2015 at Central Nursery of Central Arid Zone Research Institute, Jodhpur and the performance of P. cineraria seedlings was compared for various seedling vigour related traits. Both the media and polybag size significantly influenced different shoot and root parameters. Interaction effect among media and polybag was also observed for seedling height, root collar diameter and root length. A high positive correlations (r>0.80) were found between height of seedlings and root length, shoot fresh and dry weight, and root fresh and dry weight. The regression analysis (R2>80%) also proved the strong relationship between these parameters. The overall performance of seedlings was highest in media composed of sand: vermicompost (VC): clay soil in 2:1:1 ratio and bigger sized polybags P5 (20 × 15 cm) and P6 (25 ×15 cm).