<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>Tomato is an important horticultural crop as it provides income and contributes to food security for Rwandan citizens. Besides its importance, its production is hampered by the use of a soil-based growing medium which results in the production of low-quality transplants. This is mainly attributed to the unaffordability of peat moss to small-scale farmers in Rwanda. Hence, a greenhouse nursery experiment was carried out at the Rwanda-Israel Horticulture Centre of Excellence to search for an alternative growing medium to peat moss. Nine different growing media were formulated from a mixture at different ratios of sand, goat manure, and carbonised rice husks. The seeds were sown in propagation trays. The experiment was laid out in a randomised complete block design (RCBD) with four replications. Data obtained were subjected to analysis of variance and means were separated using Tukey’s honestly significant difference test at <italic>p ≤</italic> 0.05. The data analysis was carried out using SAS software version 9.2. The results revealed that sand + goat manure + carbonised rice husk 50 %: 10 %: 40 % (T8) was comparable to T1 (peat moss 100 %) in producing higher quality seedlings during both trials with a mean quality index of 0.28 and 0.31, respectively, whereas T2 (sand 100 %) had seedlings with the poorest quality. Consequently, T8 can be adopted by nursery producers as an alternative to peat moss in the production of quality tomato transplants. More research on other locally available organic substrates is encouraged to find out alternatives to expensive media like peat moss because it was observed that the use of sand + goat manure + carbonised rice husk 50 %: 10 %: 40 % revealed in production of quality seedlings with no significant difference from the ones grown in peat moss.</p>
</abstract>

Tomato is an important horticultural crop as it provides income and contributes to food security for Rwandan citizens. Besides its importance, its production is hampered by the use of a soil-based growing medium which results in the production of low-quality transplants. This is mainly attributed to the unaffordability of peat moss to small-scale farmers in Rwanda. Hence, a greenhouse nursery experiment was carried out at the Rwanda-Israel Horticulture Centre of Excellence to search for an alternative growing medium to peat moss. Nine different growing media were formulated from a mixture at different ratios of sand, goat manure, and carbonised rice husks. The seeds were sown in propagation trays. The experiment was laid out in a randomised complete block design (RCBD) with four replications. Data obtained were subjected to analysis of variance and means were separated using Tukey’s honestly significant difference test at p ≤ 0.05. The data analysis was carried out using SAS software version 9.2. The results revealed that sand + goat manure + carbonised rice husk 50 %: 10 %: 40 % (T8) was comparable to T1 (peat moss 100 %) in producing higher quality seedlings during both trials with a mean quality index of 0.28 and 0.31, respectively, whereas T2 (sand 100 %) had seedlings with the poorest quality. Consequently, T8 can be adopted by nursery producers as an alternative to peat moss in the production of quality tomato transplants. More research on other locally available organic substrates is encouraged to find out alternatives to expensive media like peat moss because it was observed that the use of sand + goat manure + carbonised rice husk 50 %: 10 %: 40 % revealed in production of quality seedlings with no significant difference from the ones grown in peat moss.

Sand amended with carbonised rice husk and goat manure as a propagation medium

Department of Crops, Horticulture and Soils, Faculty of Agriculture

Department of Crop Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture

University of Rwanda, College of Agriculture, Animal Sciences and Veterinary Medicine

Agricultura Tropica et Subtropica

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

{"article-title":"Sand amended with carbonised rice husk and goat manure as a propagation medium"}

Tomato is an important horticultural crop as it provides income and contributes to food security for Rwandan citizens. Besides its importance, its production...

Sand amended with carbonised rice husk and goat manure as a propagation medium

Published Online: Dec 24, 2022

Page range: 202 - 213

Received: Feb 24, 2022

Accepted: Dec 16, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ats-2022-0021

Keywords
Top soils, peat moss, growing medium, carbonisation, nursery, tomato, sowing, seedling emergence, growth, transplants, seedling quality, Dickson quality index

© 2022 Ephrem Nkurunziza et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Sand amended with carbonised rice husk and goat manure as a propagation medium

Published Online: Dec 24, 2022

Page range: 202 - 213

Received: Feb 24, 2022

Accepted: Dec 16, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ats-2022-0021

KeywordsTop soils, peat moss, growing medium, carbonisation, nursery, tomato, sowing, seedling emergence, growth, transplants, seedling quality, Dickson quality index

© 2022 Ephrem Nkurunziza et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
Top soils, peat moss, growing medium, carbonisation, nursery, tomato, sowing, seedling emergence, growth, transplants, seedling quality, Dickson quality index