Scientific Research and Essays Full Length Research Paper Efficacy of Panchagavya on seed invigoration of biofuel crops

Studies on organic seed fortification with Jatropha curcas and Pongamia pinnata using ‘Panchagavya ’at one, two, three, four and five per cent concentrations with the three different soaking durations revealed that Panchagavya at 2 and 5% with the soaking duration of 16 and 8 h were superior than the control and other concentrations in terms of germination and seedling vigour for Jatropha curcas and Pongamia pinnata respectively. 
 
 Key words: Organic fortification, biofuel species, seed germination, seedling vigour.


INTRODUCTION
Panchagavya means "mixture of five products (cow dung, cow urine, milk, ghee and curd) of cow.Of these, the three direct constituents are cow dung, urine, and milk; and the two derived products are curd and ghee.It has been used in traditional Indian rituals throughout history.It is also called cowpathy treatment based on products obtained from cows used in Ayurvedic medicine and of religious significance for Hindus.Panchgavya is also used as fertilizers and pesticides in agricultural operations.Panchagavya is an organic product recommended for crop improvement in organic agriculture (Sangeetha and Thevanathan, 2010).In Sanskrit, Panchagavya means the blend of five products obtained from cow.Each individual of these five products is called 'Gavya' and together termed as 'Panchagavya '.The literatures on Vedic (Vrkshayurveda) depict organizations of the practices that the farmers practice Panchagavya at field level.It has a place, in a theoretical framework and also has certain plant growth stimulants.Panchagavya plays an important role in the quality of fruits and vegetables.It is used as a foliar spray, soil application along with irrigation, as well as seed treatment (Natarajan, 2002).Farmers in South India practice Panchagavya for sustainable agriculture (Nayagam, 2001).Use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture fields led to environmental degradation and hence as an alternative to chemicals.Panchagavya is also being sought to improve crop establishment and health (Shakuntala et al., 2012).Therefore, Panchagavya has played a significant role in providing resistance to pests and diseases, resulting in increased overall yields (Tharmaraj et al., 2011;Sumangala and Patil, 2009).Panchagavya possess the properties of fertilizers and bio pesticides (Sireesha, 2013).Panchagavya has resulted in positive effect on growth and productivity of crops as reported by Somasundaram et al. (2007).
Jatropha curcas (L.) belongs to the family Euphorbiaceae, commonly named as physic nut and Pongamia pinnata (L.) Pierre belongs to the family *Corresponding author.E-mail: mariappann21@gmail.com.
Leguminoseae, commonly known as Indian beech tree or pongam oil tree, that is, trees grown in backyards of forest based industry because of their utility as an alternative of fossil fuel.These underutilized trees are houses based on their multipurpose utility.At present, these trees are getting more popularity for plantation in generally propagated through seeds (Daniel and Hegde, 2007).Seed is one of the basic inputs of agriculture normally invigorated before sowing for the benefit of endogenous improvement of needy substances.Irrespective of the invigorative agent, the success of pretreatment is highly dependent on its concentration and the soaking duration.Promotive influence of Panchagavya has been well documented in agricultural and horticultural crops to enhance the growth and yield (Natarajan, 2002), but there is no evidence found on biofuel tree species.Hence studies were initiated with Jatropha and Pungam seeds to evaluate the influence of Panchagavya for its seed invigorative influence with different doses and durations.

Seed source and experimental materials
Fresh seeds of J. curcas and P. pinnata were collected from Theni (10 o 04'N 77 o 45'E) and Coimbatore (11 o 1'6''N 76 o 58'21''E) districts of Tamil Nadu, India and used for Panchagavya seed fortification study during the year 2010 to 2011.The commercial product of Panchagavya was obtained from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore, India.

Approach
Panchagavya (TNAU product) was diluted to 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5% concentration using distilled water (Panchagavya were measured as 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 ml and the volume was made up to 100 ml using 99 / 98 / 97 / 96 / 95 ml of distilled water respectively).In each of the dilutions, the seeds of J. curcas and P. pinnata were soaked along with water adopting the seed to solution ratio of 1:1.The seeds were removed at various soaking durations viz., 8, 16 and 24 h and were sown in sand media under germination room condition (25°C, 95 ± 2% RH).Seven replications with 100 seeds in each were used in each treatment.

Observations
Seed germination per cent was calculated on 5th, 8th, 12th and 16th day and on 10th, 14th, 18th and 22nd day (after sowing) for J. curcas and P. pinnata respectively.After 16 and 22 days after sowing, the seeds were evaluated for the initial seed and seedling quality characteristics viz., Germination (%) (ISTA, 2010), root length (cm) (the distance between the collar region to the tip of the primary root), shoot length (cm) (the distance between collar region to the tip of the primary leaf), dry matter production of 10 seedlings - 1 (g) (dried in a hot air oven maintained at 85°C for 48 h and cooled in a desicator for 30 minutes and weighed in an electronic digital balance).Vigour index values were also computed as per Abdul-Baki and Anderson (1973) adopting the following formula.

Statistical analysis
The data were analyzed statistically adopting the procedure described by Gomez and Gomez (1984).Wherever necessary, the percentage values were transformed to angular (arc sine) values before carrying out the statistical analysis.The critical difference (CD) were worked out at 5% (P = 0.05) level.Since all the experiments were laboratory basis, the experimental design adopted was completely randomized design.

RESULTS
Organic products are natural substances containing growth regulators and nutrients in different proportions (Somasundaram et al., 2007).Though their utility has been well established, for the selectivity of botanicals, the present study was carried out on Panchagavya with five different concentrations (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5%) and three different durations of soaking (8, 16 and 24 h) for invigoration of Jatropha and Pungam, the biofuel crops to have a better nursery establishment.The results expressed significant variation among the concentrations of Panchagavya and the durations of soaking (Tables 1  and 2).

Jatropha curcas
The variation in J. curcas seed germination percentage recorded at various durations to express the influence of invigorative agent during growth period as 5th, 8th, 12th, and 16th day after sowing (Figure .1).The results revealed that the earliest germination to the tune of 20% was recorded at T 1b (16 h soaking at 1% Panchagavya) treatment followed 18% by T 3b (16 h soaking at 3% Panchagavya) in five days after sowing while highest germination percentage (83%) were recorded for T 1b (16 h soaking at 1% Panchagavya) followed (78%) by T 6b (16 h water soaking) on 16th day after sowing.
Among the different concentrations and soaking durations of Panchagavya, Jatropha seeds had better invigorated at 2% concentration with 16 h soaking (83%) which were 17 and 6% higher than control and water soaking respectively (Table 1).Similarly, the seedling vigour was also higher with 2% concentration of Panchagavya than control and water soaked seeds.But, seed germination and seedling quality characteristics were reduced with increasing concentration levels and duration.

Pongamia pinnata
The P. pinnata seeds on 10th day after sowing at 5% concentration of Panchagavya, T 5a scored highest germination (88%) followed by T 4a (80%).However, there was no germination observed on 10th day after sowing of Pungam seeds under the treatments T 1c (24 h soaking at 1% Panchagavya), T 2c (24 h soaking at 2% Panchagavya) and T 7 (control) (Figure 2).The results on P. pinnata revealed that seeds had better invigorative effect only at 5% with the soaking duration of 8 h (Table 2) probably due to the size of the seeds and the thickness of the seed coat and was followed by 4% for 8 h soaking.P. pinnata seeds pretreated with Panchagavya at 5% concentration for 8 h soaking enhanced the germination by 20 and 10% compared to control and water soaking respectively.Seed fortification with Panchagavya (5%) had also increased the seed and seedling vigour of Pungam seeds compared to control and water soaking.
Haryana (India) for providing research grant for the project.

Table 1 .
Influence of seed fortification treatment with Panchagavya on seed invigoration of Jatropha curcas.
C -Concentration, D -Duration of soaking hours (h), C x D -Interaction between concentration and duration of soaking duration, and NS -Non-significant.Figures in parentheses are arc sine transformed values.

Table 2 .
Influence of seed fortification treatment with Panchagavya on seed invigoration of Pongamia pinnata.Duration of soaking hours (h), C x D -Interaction between concentration and duration of soaking duration, and NS -Non-significant.Figures in parentheses are arc sine transformed values.