Effect of different growing media and Containers on growth of seedlings of papaya (carica papaya L.) cv. madhubindu.

The study was carried out to study the effect of growing media and containers on growth of seedlings of papaya (Carica papaya L.). For growing seedlings five types of media and three types of containers were studied. This experiment was conducted in a Complete Randomized Block Design (Factorial) with fifteen treatment combinations replicated thrice. The result showed that in media M3-Soil + Cocopeat + FYM(1: 1: 1), significantly maximum height of seedlings (6.98 cm and 15.27 cm) at 30 and 45 DAS respectively, stem diameter (3.89 mm) at 45 DAS and dry weight of seedling (0.587 g) were noted. However, significantly maximum height of seedlings at 15 DAS (5.26 cm) was noted in media M4-Soil + Cocopeat+ Vermicompost + Sand (1: 1: 1: 1). Similarly among different containers, the vegetative growth characters like height of seedling (5.27, 7.06 and 15.23 cm) at 15, 30 and 45 DAS respectively, stem diameter (1.70 mm), number of leaves per seedling (6.30) at 30 DAS and diameter of primary root (3.92 mm) recorded significantly highest in papaya seedlings raised in polythene bags (C3). Earthen pots (C1) grown papaya seedlings showed significantly maximum leaf area (37.09 cm2), fresh weight of seedling (6.73 g), dry weight of seedling (0.597 g) and length of primary root (10.05 cm) as compared to rest of the media. From all the characters of seedling growth, only fresh and dry weight of seedlings were affected significantly by interaction of different media and containers and maximum values i.e. 8.60 g and 0.836 g respectively, were recorded with M3C1 (Soil + Cocopeat + FYM(1: 1: 1) in Earthen pots).