Study on application of irradiated sodium alginate and some macronutrients on growth, yield and active constituents of Artemisia Annua L.

Abstract

Abstract of the thesis Study on application of irradiated sodium alginate and some macronutrients on growth, yield and active constituents of Artemisia nnua L. submitted to the Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, UP, India for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Botany, 2011. Four field experiments were conducted during 2007-2010 on Artemisia annua L. The salient features are given below: Experiment 1 (2007-2008) was conducted according to simple randomized block design to study the effects of foliar application of irradiated sodium alginate (ISA) on the performance of Artemisia annua with regard to (i) growth parameters (shoot length per plant, root length per plant, shoot fresh weight per plant and shoot dry weight per plant), (ii) biochemical parameters (chlorophyll content, carotenoid content, NR activity, CA activity, Leaf-N, -P and - K contents, net photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, internal CO2 concentration and H2O2 content), (iii) yield and quality parameters (dry leaf yield per hectare, artemisinin content per plant and artemisinin yield per hectare). Foliar sprays of six oncentrations of ISA, viz. 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 mg L-1 were applied. The plants were sprayed five times at one week interval starting from 45 days after planting (DAP) using a hand sprayer. Growth and biochemical parameters were analyzed at pre-flowering (90 DAP) and flowering (120 DAP) stages however yield parameters were taken into onsideration at flowering stage only. ISA concentration of 80 mg L-1 proved optimum for most of the attributes studied. Experiment 2 (2008-2009) was conducted according to simple randomized block design. The aim of this experiment was to find out the best dose of soil applied nitrogen (20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 kg ha-1) applied with 80 mg L-1 of ISA (worked out in Experiment 1).The plants were sprayed five times at one week interval starting from 45 days after planting (DAP) using a hand sprayer.