Liquid Organic Fertilizer Increased Nutrient Uptakes, Growth and Yields of Organically Grown Carrot and Green Onion

Abstract

Background and Objective: Sustainable supply of organic carrots and green onions must be established to comply with increased market demands by using solid organic fertilizers. The effectiveness of solid organic fertilizer must be amended with liquid organic fertilizer application to improve nutrient uptakes, growth and yields of carrot and green onion. This experiment aimed to determine the effect of liquid organic fertilizer on growth, yields and nutrient uptakes (N, P and K) by organically grown carrots and green onions. Materials and Methods: Two parallel experiments (carrot and green onion) were separately arranged in a completely randomized block design with three replicates. Treatments were five levels of liquid organic fertilizer concentrations (0, 25, 50, 75 and 100%). Results: Results indicated that the use of liquid organic fertilizer increased N, P and K uptakes by carrots and green onions, increased plant height, shoot dry weight, tuber fresh weight and tuber diameter of carrots and increased shoot fresh weight, root fresh weight, tiller number, shoot dry weight and root dry weight of green onions. Increases in tuber fresh weight of carrots and shoot fresh weight of green onions were related to their increased N, P, K uptakes. Conclusion: Results concluded that the use of 50 and 25% of liquid organic fertilizer was considered sufficient to produce high biological yields of tuber fresh weight of carrots and shoot fresh weight of green onion, respectively.