Development of Plant Growth Promoter Based on Globally and Abundantly Available Waste Banana Pseudo-Stem and Hair

Banana is cultivated in more than 120 countries, over an area of 4.8 million hectares, with an annual production of 99.99million tons in the year 2011 whereas in India alone in about 1.0 million hectares generating approximately 51.18 milliontons of pseudo-stem as waste annually. Similarly, millions tones of small hair (approximately 2500-3000 MT) are beinggenerated annually in India as waste. Both the waste material is abundantly, economically and easily available at throw awayprice. These waste materials contain various nutrients, vitamins, nitrogen, phosphorus Potassium and trace elements etc.useful for plant growth. With a view to develop wealth from these wastes namely banana pseudo-stem and hair, the study wascarried out to develop plant growth promoter utilizing these wastes. Banana pseudo-stem juice (BPSJ) was extracted fromthe leaf sheath and tender core with the help of a juice extraction machine by squeezing pseudo-stem twice to extract the juicemaximum. Plant growth promoter was prepared in laboratory using waste hair and banana pseudo-stem juice under acidiccondition which contains dissolved solid (40%), amino nitrogen (4%), total nitrogen (7%), organic carbon (8%), total aminoacids mixture (13%) and trace elements. The efficacy study of this product was carried out 5 L diluted in 200 L of water peracre on banana plantation. Drenching of this product was done five times at an interval of 1 month. During efficacy trials,parameters such as chlorophyll content, total biomass, root and shoot biomass and harvested fruit yield were studied. Theefficacy reveals, increase in chlorophyll content (50%), total biomass (35%), root and shoot (50%) and fruit yield (15%) ascompare to control. Based on efficacy study it is concluded that plant growth promoter has shown encouraging fruit growthand can be promoted among banana cultivators to enhance the productivity of crop.