Effects of fertilization levels on growth performance of micro-propagated Cryptocoryne wendtii (Water Trumpet)

This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of different fertilization levels on growth performance of micro propagated water trumpet, Cryptocoryne wendtii to find the most suitable hardening medium. Micro-propagated ninety-six individual plants potted in the commonly used substrate of coir particles were used for the experiment and subjected to different fertilization levels of Albert’s solution. Plants were potted just after being taken from the vessels and eight plant pots kept in the tanks (25.5 L water) containing 0.5 gL^–1, 1.0 gL^–1, and 2.0 gL^–1 of Albert’s solution, and fertilizer was not added into the control. Each treatment and control had three replicates and the experiment was conducted for nine weeks under natural light and temperature conditions. At the end of the experiment, plant growth performance in terms of plant height, root height, number of leaves etc. and water quality parameters were compared in One Way Analysis of Variance using SPSS (16.0). The electrical conductivity (EC) of the 0, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0 gL^–1 treatments were 0.075, 0.75, 1.5, 3.0 µS/m, respectively. At the end of the experiment, plants grown in 0.5 gL^–1 showed the best growth performance giving significantly highest plant height (11.77 ± 0.40 cm), root height (5.77 ± 0.03 cm), number of leaves (10.0 ± 0.3), number of roots (8.3 ± 0.3), wet weight of whole plant (0.3180 ± 0.0200 g), dry weight of whole plant (0.0206 ± 0.0003 g) and the largest leaf area (2.54 ± 0.01 cm²) in compared to other two treatments and control. In contrast, the uptake of Albert’s solution significantly increased with the increasing EC level. The results of this study revealed that, 0.5 gL^–1 Albert’s solution is the most suitable fertilization level among tested three fertilization levels for the hardening process of micro-propagated C. wendtii.