Coco-peat effluent and organic manure based hydroponics for greenhouse crop cultivation

Along with the growing popularity for sustainable agriculture and organic foods, currently global agriculture is striving hard to find alternatives for agro-chemicals. Even though there are certain developments in the use of organic manures in various cropping systems, knowledge on water soluble organic alternatives for inorganic fertilizer based hydroponics fertilizers (in protected agriculture) is very scarce. This issue was further envisaged by amending several water soluble industrial effluents and agricultural byproducts into drip fertigated coco-peat culture and testing their influence on the growth and yield performance of tomato and green cucumber under semi-intensive tropical greenhouse conditions in Sri Lanka. The results revealed that coco peat effluent, banana stem extract and Gliricidia extract supplemented hydroponics formulation gave equal or higher results to inorganic fertilizer (Alberts) with respect to plant height, leaf and medium N, P, K contents and the crop yield of greenhouse tomato. Despite the fact that the yield was low, comparable results were given by alternative fertigation treatments, dominated by the bio gas slurry supplement, for plant height, leaf area and leaf and medium N, P, K contents of cucumber during most plant growth stages. Further improvements can be suggested for coco peat effluent and banana stem extract based hydroponics solution for tomato and biogas slurry based hydroponics solution for cucumber through improved mixing rates and growth stage based supply control.