COMPARATIVE GROWTH PERFORMANCES OF TARO PLANT IN AQUAPONICS VS OTHER SYSTEMS

Copyright © 2014 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT: Population pressure and land scarcity hindered the development and food security in Bangladesh. To feed the enormous population, farmers increased crop production using chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides which created environmental pollution and health hazards. Therefore, an experiment was carried out as organic farming to investigate the growth performances of Taro plant (Colocasia esculenta) in aquaponics system (T1), hydroponics with tap water (T2) and in soil (T3). The healthy and equal sized Taro seedlings were used in each method and tilapia was used as experimental fish. Water quality parameters were recorded weekly, fish and vegetable growth was monitored fortnightly and soil quality was measured monthly. Two sample t-test was conducted for morphological parameters and coefficient of variation (CV) was measured for biochemical elements to find out the best performed method. The growth of Taro plant was significantly different in various systems. The highest growth was found in T1 followed by T3 and T2. The mineral contents in the soil were significantly higher than the other systems. Taro plant growth was significantly higher in T1 as waste water continuously supplied nutrients to the plants, hence, the system can be replicated anywhere in the country irrespective of geographi