Growth, Yield and Quality of Chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat.) cv. Dolly Orange as influenced by Biofertilizers in combination with Phosphorous

A pot experiment was conducted in the screen-house of the Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar during 2011–12 and 2012–13 to investigate the potential effect of biofertilizers (PSB and mycorrhiza) and different levels of phosphorus (0, 10, 15 and 20 g/m2) on growth, yield and quality of chrysanthemum. The conjunctive effect of biofertilizers and different levels of phosphorus was found to be significant for both the years. The maximum plant height (31.77 and 33.33 cm), fresh weight of plant (100.90 and 96.77 g) and dry weight of plant (10.85 and 10.15 g) were recorded with PSB + phosphorus 15 g/m2 in the year 2011–12 and 2012–13, respectively. The minimum number of days taken for bud initiation (61.67 and 63.33 days) and number of days to first flowering (75.00 and 75.67 days) were also obtained with PSB + phosphorus 15 g/m2 in both the years, respectively. The maximum number of buds per plant (32.33 and 32.00), number of flowers per plant (29.00 and 29.33), the longest flower stalk (6.33 and 6.33 cm) were noticed with PSB + phosphorus 15 g/m2 in the year 2011–12 and 2012–13, respectively. The maximum number of days taken for bud initiation (79.00 and 80.33 days) was recorded with mycorrhiza application (alone) during both the years, respectively. The interaction effect between the biofertilizers and levels of phosphorous on number of suckers per plant was found to be non-significant during both the years of experimentation.

Application of chemical fertilizers increase the soil and water pollution and accumulation of some heavy metals such as cadmium, they can threat human health.

In recent years, phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB) and vesicular arbuscular mycorrhiza (VAM) fungi have become important biotechnological tools and are being employed to reduce the input of chemical fertilizers and irrigation.

Use of biofertilizers coupled with reduced chemical fertilizer can improve the physico-chemical and biological properties of soil as well as it resulted in the improvement of growth, yield and quality parameters.