Growth response and production of purple sweet potatoes after provision of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and organic fertilizer

Abstract

Background and Objective: Indonesia is rich in non-rice carbohydrate sources including tubers and seeds, but the achievement of consumption these kind of food has only reached 5%. One of these tubers is purple sweet potato. This study aimed to examine the effect of administration of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) and Organic Fertilizer (OF) on the growth and production of purple sweet potatoes. Materials and Methods: Purple sweet potato seeds were sown in the form of plant stems. This study used factorial Randomized Block Design (RBD) consisting of 2 factors with 4 replications. The first factor is the dose of AMF and the second factor is OF. The agronomical parameters observed included stem length, number of leaves, number of branches, number of flowers as well as weight, diameter, number and length of tuber. All variables were analyzed with one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results: The results showed that the administration of 20 and 30 g of AMF supplemented with 50 g of OF (m2p1 and m3p1, respectively) significantly increased stem length, number of leaves, number of branches, tuber weight, diameter and length. Statistical analysis showed a highly significant increase in potato yield for inoculated plants compared with non-inoculated controls. Conclusion: Hence, it can be concluded that application of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi in combination with organic fertilizer were able to improve the plant growth and the tuber yield of purple sweet potato.