Foeniculum Vulgare Mill Essay

Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare Mill.) is an important seed spice belongs to family Apiaceae and widely grown in the states like Gujarat, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh in India. It contributes about 9.0 % and 4.7% of total seed spices production and area respectively in our country with a productivity of 1245 kg-1. During 2012-13, an amount of 13,811 ton fennel was exported to foreign countries to earn Rs 10,466.12 lakh. The seed has been reported to contain 1 to 6% volatile oil and 10 to 20% fixed oil alongwith 9.5% protein, 10% fat and 13.4% minerals (calcium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus & sodium) and vitamin and niacin.

Plant nutrition is one of the key factors influencing the growth and yield of crop plants. Continuous and indiscriminate

Considering the yield and other parameters, the treatment combination 50%N+PK +Azospirillum with 45x35cm spacing (T9) produced the highest yield (16.79 q/ha). Investigation also revealed that the same treatment recorded maximum plant height, number of branches and number of umbels per plant. The reason behind the positive role of Azospirillum may be that bio-fertilizers are artificially multiplied cultures of latent cells of efficient strains of micro-organisms capable of fixing atmospheric nitrogen and decomposing cellulolytic waste materials and for effective recycling of solid wastes and even produce growth promoting substances. Rahimi et al. (2009) also observed highest plant height, number of branches, number of umbels, dry weight and fruit yield per plant of coriander with the treatment combination of Azospirillum + 50 % N. Bio-fertilizers add nutrients through the natural processes of nitrogen fixation and stimulating plant growth through synthesis of growth promoting substances and might have positively influenced the crop yield. The beneficial role of supplemented organic manures and bio-fertilizers in improving soil physical, chemical and biological role is well known, which in turn helps in better nutrient absorption by plants and resulting higher

Similar to the present findings, Malhotra et al. (2006) reported that Azospirillum inoculation along with nitrogen and FYM increased the number of branches per plant on coriander. Sokhangoy et al. (2012) suggested that application of bio-fertilizers significantly increased plant height, number of spikes per plant, number of seeds per spike, number of seeds per plant and the weight of 1000 seeds in dill. Bio-fertilizer has significantly influenced the flowering and umbel number per plant. Application of nitrogen fixing bacteria caused improvement of biological activities of soil and mineral element absorption, caused more biomass production and umbel number. These findings are in accordance with the observations of Abdou et al. (2004) ,Subramanian et al. (2001) and Mahfouz and Sharaf Eldin (2007) on