Dry Matter Production Response of Non-conventional Pineapple (<i>Ananas comosus </i>L.) Seedling to Nursery Media Preparation

Establishment and management of pineapple production mainly lie on the production and supply of quality planting material with desirable root and shoot growth characteristics. Farmers in the South Ethiopia, uses different parts of pineapple like ground sucker, slips, and also crown sucker to transplant to the permanent fields. The fertilization practices were also not common, some farmers use to apply organic fertilizers like animal dung at the permanent field while there is no any media information generated to seedling production. Therefore, this study was conducted to examine the dry matter Production responses of non-conventional pineapple Seedling to organic based nursery media Preparation. The experiment was arranged in RCBD with three replication and six treatments. Six treatment combinations of compost to topsoil ratio in (0:1), (1:1), (1:2), (1:3) (1:4) and compost only (1:0). All the relevant parameters were collected and computed using SAS software. Treatment means were separated using LSD at 5% probability. The results revealed significant variation among the treatments that indicated, the soil based nursery media of compost (1:0) and (1:1) ratio of compost to topsoil responded the best dry matter production response of pineapple seedling in terms of, leaf fresh weight, leaf dry weight, root dry weight and total plant dry biomass. This result suggested that compost (1:0) and or compost to topsoil in (1:1) ratios was useful media to produce the best growth of pineapple seedling before transplanting to its production field.