INFLUENCE OF MEDIA AND NUTRIENT SOLUTIONS ON GROWTH, YIELD AND QUALITY OF COLEUS (Plectranthus barbatus Andr.) UNDER SOILLESS CULTURE

Y. SHARMA¹, M. VASUNDHARA^2
1Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture, Hanumanamatti, Ranebennur - 581 115, Karnataka, India.
²Department of Horticulture, UAS, GKVK, Bengaluru - 560 065, Karnataka, India.

Received : 15-05-2015     Accepted : 21-06-2015     Published : 25-06-2015
Volume : 4     Issue : 1       Pages : 53 - 58
World Res J Agric Biosyst Eng 4.1 (2015):53-58

Keywords : coleus, soilless culture, nutrient solution, forskolin, cocopeat media
Academic Editor : Dr. Kavera Biradar, Singh Hemlata, Ogunlabi Olugbenga O., Mishra Tulika, Yogeshkumar Anandrao Gite
Conflict of Interest : None declared
Acknowledgements/Funding : This work was supported by Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, India, by providing INSPIRE fellowship for conducting research work.

The present investigation was carried out at Sugandhavana, Medicinal and Aromatic section, Division of Horticulture, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore (Zone- 5). Coleus (Plectranthus barbatus) is an important medicinal plant species, contains forskolin, which is mainly used to reduce the blood cholesterol level. Incidence of soil borne diseases and nematodes is a limiting factor for growing the crop in soil media. To overcome this, the work was initiated to standardize the soilless growth media and nutrient solution concentration in coleus cultivar Aisiri for growth, yield and forskolin content. Among the different media and nutrients, the plants grown under cocopeat media with 150 per cent of recommended dose of fertilizers for normal soil grown crops responded well with high vegetative growth such as plant height, number of branches, fresh and dry weight of shoot. Among the different root parameters, root diameter and dry matter accumulation was significantly higher in cocopeat media with 80 per cent of recommended dose of fertilizers (864 mg plant-1 nitrogen, 768 mg plant-1 phosphorous and 960 mg plant-1 potassium). Significantly high yield parameters such as fresh and dry weight of roots (410 and 114 g plant-1, respectively) and yield per unit area (1.71 kg m-2) were observed in cocopeat media with 80 per cent of recommended dose of fertilizers. The active principle, forskolin content (1.00 per cent) was also found to be maximum in plants grown under cocopeat media with 80 per cent of recommended dose of fertilizers.