Effect of nursery techniques on early growth attributes of minisett-cultivated cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz)

Investigations were done to find out the effect of nursery techniques on minisett-cultivated cassava at College of Agriculture, Vellayani, Thiruvanathapuram, Kerala during April to June 2017. The objective was to find out a viable nursery technique for cassava minisett cultivation. For this two types of minisett cuttings and three types of potting media were tried in the nursery. The three-node cuttings of cassava minisett resulted in significantly higher seedling sprouting, shoot length, shoot biomass, root length and root biomass. Among different potting media used in the experiment, coir pith compost and vermicompost in the ratio of 3: 1 and normal top soil and coir pith compost in the ratio of 1: 1 resulted in higher seedling sprouting compared to normal top soil as potting medium but former treatment performed better with respect to shoot length, shoot biomass, root length and root biomass of minisett seedlings. The interaction of three-node cuttings of cassava minisett and coir pith compost and vermicompost in the ratio of 3: 1 gave better results than other combinations. The results of the study indicated that raising three-noded minisett cassava cuttings in potting medium containing coir pith compost and vermicompost in the ratio of 3: 1 in the nursery performed better wrt shoot length, shoot biomass, root length and root biomass.