Impacts of vermicompost and farmyard manure as organic fertilizer with biochar amendment on soil quality, growth and yield of sunflower

Sunflower is an economically important and the fourth most valuable oil seed crop. The study aimed to investigate organic fertilizers as an alternative method of enhancing soil quality and to determine the optimal combination of organic fertilizer treatments for sunflower growth performance and yield.

The sunflower variety BARI Surjamukhi-2 was used in this study. The treatments were applied as T1= Control; T2= Farmyard Manure @ 2 t ha^-1; T3= Vermicompost @2 t ha^-1; T4= Biochar @2 t ha^-1; T5= Farmyard Manure @1 t ha^-1+Vermicompost @ 1 t ha^-1; T6= Farmyard Manure @1 t ha^-1+Biochar @1 t ha^-1 and T7= Vermicompost @ 1 t ha^-1+Biochar @1 t ha^-1.

The data showed that application of different organic fertilizer treatments improves soil quality. Organic fertilizer addition had a positive effect on the growth traits like plant height, leaves number plant^-1, stem diameter, chlorophyll content, head diameter, fresh and dry seed number head^-1, 1,000-seed weight and seed yield. The correlation results strongly agreed that chlorophyll content, fresh seed number, head diameter plant^-1 and 1,000-seed weight could be considered as selection indices for high yield of sunflower. This demonstrates the organic fertilizer's capacity to improve sunflower growth and yield, as well as its significant potential to replace chemical fertilizers in the perspective of crop sustainability.