HYDROPONIC GROWING OF LETTUCE (Lactuca sativa L.) AND PRODUCTION OF BIOORGANIC LIQUID FERTILIZER FROM COFFEE GROUND AND BANANA PEELS

Bioorganic liquid fertilizers are applied in the agricultural field as a replacement of conventional chemical fertilizer. Thus, the present study was aimed to produce bioorganic liquid fertilizer from coffee ground and banana peels through aerobic fermentation in open containers. The fermentation process was carried out under aerobic condition in two replications. Quantitative analysis for composition of plant macronutrients including Percentage carbon(C ), nitrogen (N), carbon to nitrogen ratio (C:N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), Sodium (Na), calcium (Ca), Magnesium (Mg), pH, and electrical conductivity (EC). The result indicated that Phosphorus (2.51%), Potassium (3.74%) calcium (4.15%) Magnesium (2.35%) and sodium (2.67%) were found to be significant between bioorganic liquid fertilizer and compost tea (used as a control) solution. However, there were no significant differences with respect to Carbon and Nitrogen contents of the solutions. Comparison of mineral composition of bioorganic liquid fertilizer and compost tea solutions with the standard for major macronutrients requirement of plants indicated that the composition of both fertilizer solutions in the present study satisfies the standard with bioorganic liquid fertilizer being higher in mean values for most of the studied mineral plant nutrients. The bioorganic liquid fertilizer produced was evaluated by growing lettuce in pots experiment in two replications and It was indicated that most of the measured parameters including above ground biomass per plant (ABMW), days to maturity (DM), and head weight per plant(HWP) were measured to be significant, between compost tea and bioorganic fertilizer solutions, for all soil grown plant . It was indicated that the performance of lettuce irrigated with bioorganic fertilizer solution was performing better than compost tea solution and soil grown plant. It can be concluded from the present study that bioorganic liquid fertilizer can be produced from locally available substrates like coffee ground and banana peels. Small holder farmers can get economic relief, because by using this technology, thus, they can minimize the use of chemical fertilizer which is being expensive and not environmentally friendly.