EFFECT OF LOCALLY AVAILABLE ORGANIC FERTILIZERS ON GROWTH AND YIELD OF CAULIFLOWER AND SOIL NUTRIENT COMPOSITION (Brassica oleracea Var. Snow Mystique)

Cauliflower production in Bhutan is one of the cash crops generating Nu.31 million in 2016, however, it is a crop requiring heavy fertilization. However, synthetic fertilization was reported to degrade the soil and its productivity in the long run by numerous scientists all over the world. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of locally available organic fertilizers on growth and yield of cauliflower and its soil nutrient constituent. The study included six different treatments namely T1 (Control), T2 (Vermicompost), T3 (Bio-slurry), T4 (FYM), T5 (Jholmol) and T6 (Bhur OM). The study revealed that application of locally available organic fertilizers had a statistically significant effect (P value = 0.0003) on the yield of cauliflower. The highest yield was obtained from T2 (25.77 tons/ha) which was 8.30 % more compared to the lowest yield from T1 (14.33 tons/ha). Growth parameters like plant height, plant width, curd length, curd width, curd height and number of leaves were not significantly affected by the application of organic fertilizers; however, except for plant height and number of leaves, T1 performed the lowest in other growth parameters. A statistically significant effect in soil nutrient composition was observed on applying different organic fertilizers. T6 and T5 had high major soil nutrient content such as organic matter, available phosphorus and available potassium but it was observed that their yield was low as compared to other treatments. This could be linked to nutrient unavailability due to high C:N ratio in T6 (21) and T5 (23). In general, the result of the study revealed that the application of organic fertilizers in cauliflower had a positive effect on its yield, growth parameters and soil quality.