Abstract

This study aims to evaluate different growth media to improve tomato seedling’s quality. Tomato is an important crop cultivated by small and medium-scale farmers mainly for the domestic market. The demand for tomato seedlings has surged significantly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and recent floods. However, poor-quality growing media are often used which results in poor-quality seedlings, slow growth and low yields. As such a trial was conducted in the seedling nursery at the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI). This experiment was arranged according to the Complete Randomized Design with four treatments (T1: Promix; T2: Vermicompost; T3: SOW-mix and T4: burnt paddy hulls) and six replicates. All treatments were subjected to nutrient analysis. After five days, tomato seeds grown in burnt paddy hull media recorded significantly higher percent emergence than vermicompost potting media. Germination percent was significant in the order, of burnt paddy hulls > SOW mix > Promix > Vermicompost. Vermicompost potting soil achieved substantially more leaves per plant, longer leaves, longest plants, longest roots and highest wet and dry plant biomass when compared to the other treatments. Among all treatments, the burnt paddy shell produced the fewest plant parameters mentioned above. As such, seedling growers may consider incorporating vermicompost in their potting mixture to ensure high-quality tomato seedlings are produced and sold