Influence of Sowing Media and Variety on Growth Parameters and Disease Incidence of Early Cauliflower (Brassica oleracea var. botrytis) Seedlings

Healthy seedling production is prerequisite for raising vigorous and profitable crops. The present investigation was carried out at Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat, Assam in the year 2018 and 2019 to access the impact of sowing media and variety on growth and incidence of disease in nursery. The treatments consisted of four different sowing media [M1-cocopeat (60): vermiculite (20): perlite (20), M2-cocopeat (50): vermicompost (50), M3-cocopeat (50): vermicompost (50): microbial consortium and M4-Conventional nursery] and two varieties [V1 (White Diamond) and V2 (CFL1522)].Thus, 8 treatment combinations were laid out in a 4x2 factorial arrangement in a Randomized Completely Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. The treatment M1, M2 and M3 were inside green house. The results revealed that seedlings raised in different sowing media surpassed the conventional sowing media for growth attributes and disease incidence. The highest seedling stem diameter (0.50 cm), fresh weight (5.44 g) and highest dry weight (0.64 g) was recorded by seedlings grown in M2 i.e cocopeat(50):vermicompost (50), while M3-cocopeat (50): vermicompost (50): microbial consortium recorded maximum seedling growth index (1469.86). The lowest value for all the growth parameters were recorded in conventional nursery(M4). Non-significant effect of variety was noticed for seedling stem diameter. Variety V1 (White Diamond) registered maximum seedling fresh weight (4.12 g), dry weight (0.43 g) and seedling growth index (1254.49).The least disease incidence (2.36 %) was recorded in M3 i.e cocopeat (50): vermicompost (50): microbial consortium and in variety V2 (CFL1522) with 4.76 %. The interaction effect was also found to be significant for growth parameter as well as for disease incidence. The treatment combination M2V1 recorded the maximum seedling stem diameter (0.53 cm), fresh weight (5.50 g) and dry weight (0.66 g) while M3V2 was found to be superior than all other treatment combination with maximum seedling growth index (1482.03) and with the lowest disease incidence ( 2.11 %).Since M3 contains the component of M2 and resulted the lowest incidence of disease which is an important criteria of quality seedlings and considering the superiority of V1 with respect to most of the growth parameters it can be concluded that for producing good quality seedlings of early cauliflower under protected condition the treatment combination M3V1 can be used.