Utilization of Some Organic Wastes as Growing Media for Improving Plant Growth and Chemical Compositions in Madagascar Periwinkle

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Ornamental Horticulture Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza

2 Ornamental Horticulture Dept., Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt

Abstract

Madagascar periwinkle plant (Catharanthus roseus) is well known for its high medicinal value due to the presence of anti-cancer alkaloids as active substances in the tissues. Growing the plants in different media led the researchers to look for less costly prepared media from the organic wastes, which were mostly disposed of burning, leading to high environmental pollution. In addition, this organic waste is rich in nutrients, and hormones that are necessary for plants. In this research, rice husks, corn cobs, peanut shells, and hay were used as planting media after mixing them with peat 
moss at a ratio of 1 for the studied medium: 1 peat moss: 1 sand, to test the extent of the ability of these media to improve the vegetative growth and the chemical content as a prelude to working on using them alternatively to the expensive peat moss. The results indicate that the treatment with peanut shells gave the best results compared to the control. In addition, treatments were carried out by spraying the algae extract on the leaves with three concentrations, namely, 0, 250, and 500 ppm. We found that the highest concentration (500 ppm) gave the best results in terms of 
vegetative growth and chemical contents. The treatment with algae extract helped to improve the plant growth planted in corn cob medium, which finding cheap and effective alternatives to the expensive planting media to increase the production of periwinkle plants.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Scientific Journal of Agricultural Sciences
Volume 5, Issue 3
September 2023
Pages 38-51

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics