The use of many of South Africa’s medicinal plants has shown marked increase with over 27 million users in South Africa alone. Most plants are still being unsustainably wild-harvested, a major concern for biodiversity conservation. Commercial interest in certain more commonly-used species has increased, with potential to cultivate medicinal plants on a more sustainable basis. Focus has shifted from conventional use of synthetic fertilisers, pesticides and fungicides to more organic methods of plant propagation. Aqueous extract derived from earthworm composted food waste (vermitea) was used to study the germination and rooting success of selected species. Also survival and growth performance of selected plants grown in a medium amended with commercial NPK fertiliser was compared to those grown in the same medium amended with compost and to those grown in the same medium amended with compost with weekly applications of vermitea. No change in germination success was noted. Vermitea showed promising results on the rooting of cuttings. The application of NPK improved growth performance (biomass) significantly for all species tested. However, they had lower root:shoot ratios as well as lower survival rates compared to plants under the compost and compost/vermitea treatments. The improved survival of these plants highlights the potential of these organic treatments on the propagation of selected medicinal plants.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:10736 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Faulconbridge, Steven Craig |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Science |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MTech |
| Format | xii, 86 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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