Raising Quality Vegetable Seedlings Under Controlled Environment Conditions

Abstract

The nursery is a place for rearing and multiplying plants with minimal damage and maximum success. Conventionally, vegetable seedlings are grown in open fields which lead to the production of weak seedlings. An attempt was made to raise vegetable seedlings in protected structures. Different structures and media were tried for the same. Greenhouse was found more suitable for nursery raising of solanaceous vegetable crops during the peak rainy season. Seedlings raised in low tunnels showed better performance during the rest of the period. The various treatments did not have significant difference in all cases, but the solarized plots were seen to be better in most of the cases. In general, it was found that nursery raising of solanaceous crops under protected structures are more effective during the monsoon period of Kerala than the open field nursery raising in terms of number of seedlings emerged, shootlength and rootlengh.