Effect of growing media on the germination and seedling growth of Borneo sour eggplant

ABSTRACT

Borneo sour eggplant, a popular indigenous fruit vegetable in Borneo, has become an important fruit not only to local people, but also to tourists who visit Borneo. One of the challenges in planting this crop is lacking information, particularly in finding suitable media for its growth, eventually inhibiting local farmers from growing the crop commercially. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of 4 growing media compositions (M1: topsoil, M2: topsoil and compost, M3: topsoil and cocopeat and M4: topsoil, compost and cocopeat) on the germination and growth performance of sour eggplant seedlings. The experiment was tested in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with 10 replicates. At the end of germination period, seeds planted in M4 medium produced the highest germination rate of 96.67% and was significantly different (P < 0.05) from those sown in other growing media. However, the performance of the seedlings in terms of height, stem diameter, number of leaves and length of leaves showed significant increase (P < 0.05) in M2 medium. This study has demonstrated that M2 medium could improve the growth performance of the seedlings and therefore is recommended as suitable growing media for planting sour eggplant.

Keywords: Growth performance, growing medium, indigenous fruit, sour eggplant.