Biological monitoring of ornamental plants exposed to vehicular pollution near Navsari

An experiment was under taken at the Department of Floriculture, ASPEE College of Horticulture and Forestry, Navsari Agricultural University (Gujarat) for biological monitoring of ornamental plants which were exposed to vehicular pollution near Navsari. Eight species viz., Nerium oleander cv. Album, Nerium oleander cv. Roseum, Nerium oleander cv. Variegatum plenum, Cassia biflora, Thevetia peruviana cv. Yellow, Thevetia peruviana cv. White, Calliandra hybrida cv. Alipore and Bougainvillea peruviana cv. Partha were planted at 1.5m × 1.0 m distance before two years of experiment commencement at Central Verge Plantation Area (CVPA) on NH-8 and N.A.U. Campus as Reference Area (RA). The investigation was laid out in Randomized Block Design (RBD) with three replications and pooled analysis was done. Among different parameters, maximum growth was observed at RA as compared to CVPA due to favourable growing conditions as against the polluted site. In case of growth parameters, minimum interruption were found in Calliandra hybrida cv. Alipore followed by Nerium oleander cv. Roseum and Thevetia peruviana cv. Yellow grown at CVPA. Calliandra hybrida cv. Alipore had minimum disruption observed in numberr. of flowers per branch (18.85%) followed by Nerium oleander cv. Roseum (20.76%) while the highest was noted in Cassia biflora (39.01%). Maximum dust loading capacity was noted in Nerium oleander cv. Roseum (187mg/leaf) and maximum light glare interruption (76.14%) observed in Calliandra hybrida cv. Alipore. In case of peroxidase activity at CVPA and RA had remain almost constant in Calliandra hybrida cv. Alipore and Nerium oleander cv. Roseum.