Bio Fertilizer on Rachis: A New Method Facilitates Higher Banana (Musa sapientum) Production

Due to huge demand and availability of Banana, innovative cost effective method is necessary to promote and smoothen the banana production among farmers commercially mitigating the demand. Method and Materials in this study, we feed cow dung mixture along with Urea, Triple Super Phosphate (TSP), Murate of Potash (MoP), water to the distal part of rachis after cutting down male bud as soon as the female flowers matured into fruits (T1). The effect of this method was then compared with two control groups; one with the same strategy except fertilizer applied on root following ring method (C1, Positive control) and another was male flower untouched without applying fertilizer on rachis or root (C2, Negative control). Results and Conclusion T1 showed more than double increase in length than controls. In the same way, in case of shape (Diameter), T1 (0.46 cm) showed twice as better growth in the C1 (0.22 cm) and C2 (0.18 cm).Trend analysis showed the test group T1 curve is much steeper than the control groups suggesting faster growth rate than the other two. Finally, the cost of fertilizers for T1 per plant was estimated 0.091 USD while for positive control C1 it was 2.9 USD. This study shows an approach to be effective and economic comparing to traditional method of fertilizer application, which can be adapted as a new method of banana production.


INTRODUCTION
variation [6].However, in spite of its unique position Bananas are berry belong to the genus Musa, is a been done regarding area, production, yield and well-known tropical fruit with high nutrition value used constraints of banana.The present experiment has both as a staple food and dietary supplements.Not only showed a new improvised method to develop the size nutritive but Bananas also have several medicinal uses and shape of banana fingers with minimal cost and labor.This new method will help the farmers to produce more th important staple food commodity of the world, while bananas with minimum cost and labor.Farmers can be Bangladesh ranks 14th among the top 20 banana benefitted economically and will be able to mitigate public producing countries in the world.The country produces demands.This method maintains the main principle of nearly 1.00 million tons of bananas annually [3].The total agricultural production is less input with more outputs.per capita consumption in Bangladesh is about 4.7 kg where its consumption is much higher in Europe [4,5].A MATERIALS AND METHODS number of dessert banana varieties are available in Bangladesh, but their performance varies among regions Study Area: The study was conducted at a commercial due to difference in varietal adaptability and microclimatic farm named Suborno Agro-Based Initiative (SABI), among the fruit crops of Bangladesh, limited studies have dung with an amount of 5kg were placed at the bottom of consisted of three treatments and three replications.
plant in ring method.Urea (3kg) +TSP (3kg) + MOP (2.5kg) Treatment: cow dung following the same method T1: Cow dung (250 g) + Urea (85 g) + Triple Super Phosphate (TSP) (70 g) + Murate of Potash (MOP) (65 g) C2: + 20 ml water; Removal of male bud as soon as female Control Group: Retention of male bud till harvest without flower transform into fruits and application of the mixture fertilizer application on rachis or root (Fig. 3).on slanted rachis (Fig 2).For T1 the rachis of the distal In the plants of control group C2, the male bud retain end of the bunch was excised along with the male bud in rachis till harvest without any modification or giving a slanted cut immediately after all the pistillate application of any fertilizer either on rachis or plant root.flowers had formed into fruits.250 g Cow dung was mixed For all three groups, initial data for the banana finger with 20 ml water to form slurry with 85g of urea, 70g of length (cm), finger diameter (cm) and weight of fingers (g) TSP and 65 g of MOP.The blend was then placed in a was collected as soon as the female flower matured into polythene bag and tied carefully to dip the excised rachis fruits and data collection continued for two weeks with into the slurry.
seven day interval until banana ripen.

Controls: Data Collection:
The data were collected every week C1: Control group: Urea (3kg) +TSP (3kg) +MOP (2.5kg) after treating.The data were collected in the morning and + Cow dung (5kg), Removal of male bud as soon as female very carefully to avoid any destruction to fruits and flower transform into fruits and application of the mixture plants.
were mixed and applied to the bottom of plant along with Cost: The total cost (Input) was calculated after banana size (Length) increasing was 2.25 cm where C1 harvesting for all three groups.increase 1.32 cm and C2 was 1.16 cm (Table 1).
used for analyzing the data.Various descriptive statistical 2

Shape (Diameter):
In case of shape (Diameter), the test plantation increase flowering [17].However, Baruah et al. group T1, the average growth of increasing was 0.46 cm [18] and Kamal et al. [19] found that urea helps the greater than the increase of control C1 (0.22 cm) and C2 banana bunch to be ripened rapidly after harvesting.(0.18cm).The trend for the T1 was the steepest among However, tying urea, TSP and MOP at the rachis test groups with highest slop value of 0.23 (Table 2, promoted the growth of bunch and hand because of the Table 3).availability of urea, TSP and MOP in available form at later Cost: In Addition, for the test group T1 cost per plant was nutrients in available form and uptake easily from fertilizer 0.091 USD while for control C1 cost was 2.9 USD per mixer tied in cutting place on rachis.So the loss of plant.Cost per fertilizer and ingredients are given in detail fertilizer is minimum.(Table 4).
In this method growth of banana is more with low DISCUSSION plant which was maximum in growth while in C1 the cost The current study recorded significant improvement so this method is more economic.When the fertilizers are in yield parameters viz., length of fingers (cm), shape of applied bottom of the plant it gets available form and fingers (cm) in all replicates, from which the male bud was different tissue use it for different physiological reactions removed and fertilizers were applied on the slanting cut of but when it applied in this method fruits get direct banana plant among three treatments.In more details, the nutrients in available form easily and nutrients loss is treatment with urea (85g)+ TSP (70g)+ MOP (65g)+ minimal.Banana is an herbaceous flowering plant, in cowdung (250 g) + 20 ml water (T1) recorded significant Bangladesh banana plant are cut down after her first improvement in yield parameters viz., length of fingers fruiting so plant growth is not mandatory but fruits.(cm), shape of fingers (cm) as compared to application of urea (3kg) + TSP(3kg)+MOP (2.5kg) + cowdung (5kg)+ Significance Statement: This study discovered a new proper water (C1) and Control (C2).method that can be beneficial for the farmers to produce It was reported that the bunch was fed with urea, more production with less cost.In developing country like sulphate of potash blended with fresh cowdung all the Bangladesh, have more limitation in Agriculture because yield attributing characters viz., length of fingers, weight of huge population.So, more production is needed from of fingers of first hand, weight of fingers of last hand, less land and capital.The present study need less girth of fingers, weight of first hand, weight of last hand fertilizers and labor and give bigger sized and shaped and bunch weight were significantly highest compared banana.In the market of Bangladesh the demand of bigger to others [6].Kumar and Kumar [7] showed that foliar sized and shaped banana is high than others.This study spray of sulfate of potash increase fruit length and will help the researchers to uncover the critical areas of weights of banana but it was labor intensive and costly plant modifications and horticulture that many researchers than the present study.On the other hand, Fratoni et al.
A. Khayer, 2019.Effects of different postharvest Removal of male bud caused an increase in weight treatments on ripening and quality of banana because conservation and utilization of energy for finger (Musa sapientum).International Journal of Research development which would be otherwise lost for opening and Review.DOI-10.4444/ijrr.1002/988;6(2): 303-313. of the remainder of the flower and removal of a strong and 2. FAO., 2016.The World Banana Economy.Food and active competing sink for photosynthesis, despite its Agriculture Organization.ISBN 9789251050576.smaller size relative to the bunch [14].
3. BBS., 2012.The annual report of agricultural products Rajon et al. [9] found that post shooting spraying of of Bangladesh.Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.Brassinosteroid @ 2 ml/L increased bunch size but that 4. Sarma, I., R. Buragohain and K.G.Shanmugavelu, research did not mentioned about fruits and cost like this 2014.Studies on the nutrient content and uptake of present study [15,16].On the other hand, Soares et al.
stages for a prolonged period.The banana in bunches get cost and labor.We can see that 0.09 USD was spent in T1 was 2.9 USD but growth was less than T1 plant (Table 3) [1].According to FAO [2] Banana constitute the 4 most

Fig. 1 :
Fig. 1: Study area marked with GPS icon The size of the banana was measured in centimeter Statistical Analysis: The data were put into the computer by measuring tape.forstatistical analyses.The SPSS computer program was Shape: At first the average area was collected by using measures such as range, frequency, number, mean, slide calipers and then the shape (Diameter) was standard deviation (SD), coefficient of variation (CV), R calculated by the formula A = r and rank order were used for categorization and 2 Or, describing the variables.Or, d = 2, r where, A = Area of Banana which is determined by Slide Calipers Size (Length): In the study, T1 showed the highest r = Radius growth in the size of fingers in every bunch of banana d = Diameter than other treatment control groups.The trend curve for = 3.1416 T1 was much steeper than other control group with

Table 1 :
Size (length) of the samples of banana in treatment and control groups.S (1-6) indicates the sample number of the replicates.All data were collected in 'cm' scale Size

Table 2 :
Shape (diameter) of the samples of banana in treatment and control groups.S (1-6) indicates the sample number of the replicates.All data were collected in 'cm' scale S6 Average S.D. S.E.M. S.D: Standard deviation; S.E.M.: Standard error mean

Table 3 :
Trend curve analysis for test and control groups S.D: Standard deviation; S.E.M.: Standard error mean

Table 4 :
Cost in test group and positive control.Cost is estimated according to USD