Comparative effects of biostimulants on germination, growth, and yield of bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.)

With increasing environmental challenges, sustainable approaches are required to maintain crop productivity. These issues can be resolved by advanced techniques, such as the usage of biostimulants as a sustainable approach to enhance physiological efficiency, nutrient assimilation, and stress tolerance in crops. Therefore, the field trial was executed in summer 2023 to investigate the comparative impact of different biostimulants on the growing and yielding parameters of bitter gourd. The research was performed in the SAU Nursery, Department of Horticulture, Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam, in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) under three blocks. Treatments included two different biostimulants, viz: Quantis and Rely, used at 1, 1.5 and 2% and untreated seeds were considered as control. The results demonstrated that the seeds of bitter gourd treated with 1% Rely showed maximum results for the majority of parameters, including germination index, leaves vine-1, flowers vine-1, fruits vine-1, fresh biomass of fruit, fruit length, fruit diameter, single fruit weight, and fruit weight plant-1. At the same time, seed germination was higher with 2% Rely biostimulant. At the same time, the vine length was better in bitter gourd treated with 1 % Quantis biostimulant. The findings of the study lead to the conclusion that the bitter gourd treated with 1% Rely showed higher results for vegetative as well as reproductive attributes, followed by the application of 1% Quantis and 2% Rely biostimulants.