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Journal of Entomology and Zoology Studies 2018; 6(1): 1664-1667
E-ISSN: 2320-7078
P-ISSN: 2349-6800
JEZS 2018; 6(1): 1664-1667
© 2018 JEZS
Received: 26-11-2017
Accepted: 27-12-2017
Sachin Onkar Khairnar
Department of Aquaculture,
Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and
Animal Sciences University,
Ludhiana, Punjab, India
Vaneet Inder Kaur
Department of Aquaculture,
Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and
Animal Sciences University,
Ludhiana, Punjab, India
Correspondence
Sachin Onkar Khairnar
Department of Aquaculture,
Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and
Animal Sciences University,
Ludhiana, Punjab, India
Quantitative and qualitative differences in
morphological traits of freshwater ornamental
aquatic plant water wisteria, Hygrophila difformis
under different organic substrate
Sachin Onkar Khairnar and Vaneet Inder Kaur
Abstract
The field study was conducted to investigate the quantitative and qualitative differences in morphological
traits of freshwater ornamental aquatic plant Water wisteria, Hygrophila difformis under different organic
substrate in mud pots of 3.5 liter capacity for 5 months under controlled environmental conditions.
Results showed that maximum biomass, plant length, number of leaf and runners were observed in the
treatments which contain high available nitrogen. Further during the study it was confirmed that water
wisteria is a good model to study heterophylly, as leaves in all treatments from pinnately veined shape
changed to pinnately lobed in nature. No mortality or plant deformity was observed in any treatments
during the experiment. It can be concluded that the application of cattle manure at the rate of 2% with
soil/sand (2:1) mixture is good for culture and propagation of ornamental aquatic plant, water wisteria as
it is easily available at cheaper price in local market compare to other manures.
Keywords: aquatic plant, morphological, water wisteria, organic substrate, heterophylly
1. Introduction
Aquatic plants are ornamental species: they are planted in aquaria for their beauty, but also to
maintain water quality. They are selected for shape, plant colour and size [19]. Like any other
plant, aquatic plants also fixes inorganic carbon (CO2) into organic carbon through
photosynthesis and release oxygen into the water medium, which is important for fish and
other aquatic organisms that depend on dissolved oxygen to survive. They absorb nutrients,
resulting in their less availability for algae, hence making algal blooms less likely. In addition,
aquatic plants provide food, shelter and breeding places to fishes being reared together with
plants [13]. Export of ornamental aquatic plants began in 1930s in Brazil [7]. It has been one
source of secondary income beside ornamental fish trade for aquarium companies [10]. In India,
aquarium plant cultivation is an upcoming enterprise, which has not progressed to the level of
its counterpart i.e. the ornamental fish trade [20]. The supply is mainly dependent upon wild
collection and may lead to ecological imbalance due to overexploitation along with non-
availability of desirable species. To develop this activity into small scale business, there is
need to set up an ornamental aquatic plant nursery for successful culture and propagation of
aquatic plants. This in turn will help to cater the needs of hobbyists and traders in India.
Hence, for the sustainable growth of the trade, it is necessary to intensify the culture and
propagation techniques for commercially important species. Fast growing semi-aquatic plant
water wisteria (Hygrophila difformis) shows wide variation in leaf shapes as it grows older, as
the transformation of simple leaves happens into highly branched compound leaves [11] and
adds much more aesthetic value to the aquarium outlook. In many natural environments,
nutrient supply is also an important factor in determining plant community structure [5]. The
natural source of nutrients derived from animals, plants and microorganisms are usually called
organic manure viz., poultry manure, goat manure, cattle manure and vermi compost. For
successful propagation and better growth of aquarium plants, there rises a need to understand
different organic manure requirement which are used as substrate. Organic manures can be
utilized as the substrate to study the plant growth under control condition, which in turn will
help for mass cultivation of ornamental aquatic plants. In this paper we present a study on the
qualitative and quantitative differences in morphological traits of freshwater ornamental plant
water wisteria, H. difformis under different organic substrates. The overall objective of our
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Journal of Entomology and Zoology Studies
study was to investigate the efficacy of different organic
manures for culture and propagation of ornamental aquatic
plant water wisteria.
2. Materials and Methods
The experiment was conducted at College of Fisheries, Guru
Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University,
Ludhiana for five months. Freshwater ornamental aquatic
plant water wisteria, H. difformis was obtained from domestic
ornamental fish market in Kurla, Mumbai, Maharashtra. The
identification of plant was carried out by using the
distinguishing characters [6, 17]. Five treatments such as control
(without application of manure) (T0), vermi compost (T1),
poultry manure (T2), cattle manure (T3) and goat manure (T4)
were used as organic substrate for growing water wisteria in
triplicate. Alluvial soil available in college campus was used
for the experiment. Chemical composition of growing media
(manures, soil and sand) was determined as per the standard
methods as given in Table 1 [1]. The mud pots of 3.5 liter
capacity were filled with 1 kg of soil and sand (2:1)
supplemented with 2% different organic manures as per
experiment design which was thoroughly mixed and then
remaining space was filled by 1 kg sand and top-up with
small stones (pebbles) to avoid the loss of media. Then a
horizontal branch arising from the base of a plant that
consisting buds or nodes at its tip that produces new plants
called as runners was cut with scissor and planted in the pots
for future growth and was placed in the plastic pool.
Table 1: Chemical composition of different organic manures, soil and sand
pH
EC (ds/m)
Organic Carbon (%)
Available N (%)
Available P (%)
Available K (%)
Vermi compost
6.69
1.02
5.5
0.49
0.241
0.18
Poultry manure
6.80
3.76
9.4
1.26
3.945
0.65
Cattle manure
6.86
0.717
7.1
0.83
0.522
0.24
Goat manure
8.56
0.324
9.0
0.79
0.401
1.14
Soil
7.69
0.151
3.1
0.07
0.035
0.14
Sand
8.93
0.133
2.8
0.02
0.037
0.09
Morphological trait is a characteristic of a living thing that we
can observe, such as size, color, shape, capabilities, behaviors,
etc. In genetics, you can divide all traits into two categories
based on their effects on an organism's phenotype: qualitative
and quantitative. For qualitative traits the plants were
examined visually for differences in nature of branch and
leaves, color of leaves, stem, and shape of leaves, while for
quantitative traits vegetative characters such as shoot length
(SL), root length (RL), Shoot length/root length ratio, plant
length (PL), leaf length (LL), leaf width (LW), Leaf
length/leaf width (LL/LW) ratio were recorded. Water
samples were collected for physicochemical analysis like
temperature (◦C), pH, specific conductivity (µS/cm), dissolved
oxygen (mg/l), Carbon dioxide (mg/l), total alkalinity (mg/l),
total hardness (mg/l), ammonia (mg/l), nitrate (mg/l), nitrite
(mg/l) were determined as per the standard methods [2].
Statistical analysis of the data was performed with a statistical
package (SPSS 16.0, SPSS Inc., Richmond, CA,
USA).Values was presented as means ± standard error of the
mean. Data for the growth parameters were tested for
homogeneity of variances, and then possible differences were
tested using one-way ANOVA for phenotypic parameters and
followed by a Duncan's multiple comparison to find out the
difference between treatments.
3. Results and Discussions
The occurrence of heterophylly indicates transformation in
prominent phenotypic character, as leaves changes their
morphology in response to favorable environmental
conditions [3, 21]. Heterophylly is observed in a wide range of
vascular plants including both dicots and monocots [4, 16].
There are few aquatic plants, which exhibit heterophylly viz.,
Anubias, Limnophilia, Callitriche, Hygrophilia etc. H.
difformis (Acnathaceae), is one of the fast growing semi-
aquatic plant that exhibits a variety of leaf shapes, from
simple leaves to highly branched compound leaves,
depending on the environment [11]. Heterophylly may increase
the fitness of aquatic plants by decreasing leaf damage from
mechanical forces or herbivores, by decreasing water loss or
by enhancing photosynthesis [15]. In present study all the
treatments showed semi-erect branching habit with light green
coloured shoots (Table 2). The light green colouration in stem
was possibly due to chlorophyll pigment concentration
compare to other treatments and control; while leaves were
spring green [22] in all treatments with pinnately veined shape
and pinnately lobed nature [15]. This variation in qualitative
characters may be due to the genetic makeup of these plants
as they were maintained in similar environmental and
ecological conditions. As expected, H. difformis showed
heterophylly character which is the similar findings of earlier
study [16].
Table 2: Qualitative traits of water wisteria during experiment
Treatments
Qualitative traits
Nature of the branch
Colour of the stem
Colour of the leaves
Shape of the leaves
Nature of leaves
Control (T0)
se
lg
g
pv
pl
T1
se
lg
g
pv
pl
T2
se
g
g
pv
pl
T3
se
lg
g
pv
pl
T4
se
lg
g
pv
pl
Note: Se-sub erect, lg-light green, g-green, dg-dark green, pv-pinnately veined. pl-pinnately lobed
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Journal of Entomology and Zoology Studies
Table 3: Quantitative traits (Growth parameters) of water wisteria during experiment
Treatments
Growth Parameters
SL
RL
PL
Runners
No. of Leaves
LH
LW
Biomass
Control(T0)
42.66±4.91c
17.23±2.03b
59.90±6.83c
6.67±0.88b
163.33±14.62c
5.84±0.20b
3.64±0.11b
102.67±5.81b
T1
36.00±5.57c
12.23±1.63c
48.23±7.19d
2.33±0.33c
71.66±7.36d
5.64±0.77b
3.36±0.29c
86.00±5.29c
T2
70.33±6.06ab
20.73±1.46a
91.06±7.51a
9.66±1.76a
236.66±10.37b
7.58±0.27a
4.27±0.24a
174.66±12.86a
T3
73.33±3.33a
18.33±0.88ab
91.66±3.28a
7.00±2.52ab
328.33±16.18a
7.46±0.43a
4.24±0.23a
180.00±10.26a
T4
61.67±6.01b
18.03±2.87ab
79.70±7.69b
8.00±0.58ab
264.33±26.86b
6.96±0.50a
3.77±0.45ab
112.66±7.69b
Note: Different superscripts in the same column mean significant difference between treatments (Duncan’s multiple comparisons, P < 0.05).
The ANOVA results indicated that, there were no significant
differences in the initial plant length and biomass among all
treatments (p > 0.05). The organic manures had significant
effects on the plant length and number of leaf of Water
wisteria, H. difformis (p < 0.01) (Table 3). Maximum plant
length, number of leaves was 91.66±3.28 and 328.33± 16.18
respectively observed in plant grown with cattle manure.
Further there were no significant differences in number of
runners produce by plant during the trail and it was supported
by the data, which showed higher growth rate in all treatments
except vermi compost. Plant biomass was recorded as
102.67±5.81, 86.00 ± 5.29, 174.66 ± 12.86, 180.20 ± 10.26
and 112.66 ± 7.69 gm in control, vermi compost, poultry
compost, cow dung and goat dung respectively. There were
few studies conducted on application of organic manure in
order to increase the plant height biomass, plant length and
produced good leaf quality [8, 12, 18]. The results from these
studies were in the line with the present study, as the growth
of water wisteria was recorded less in vermi compost due to
its higher organic carbon content than essential available
nitrogen. It was observed that maximum biomass, plant
length, number of leaf and runners were observed in the
treatments which contain high available nitrogen.
Healthy root system is the most essential key for all healthy
plants as it allows the absorption of water and nutrients from
the surrounding soil and root: shoot ratio is also a main
component for assessing of the overall healthy condition of
targeted plant [9]. It was seen that T3 (cattle manure)
compromised the root to shoot wet weight ratio (Figure 1).
The maximum value was found in the control compare to
other treatments. The decrease in root-to-shoot ratio might
have arisen due to the increased growth of shoot in growth
studies. Leaf length to leaf width ratio is a measure of the
efficiency with which a plant deploys its photosynthetic
resources [14]. In present study, when analyzing the leaf length
to leaf width ratio for different treatments, a lower value was
seen in control and T1 while higher values were found in T2,
T3 and T4 (Figure 2).
Fig 1: Root to shoot weight ratio during experiment on H. difformis
Fig 2: Leaf length to leaf width ratio during experiment on H. difformis
During the course of the experiment, the temperature ranged
from 28 to 32 °C, pH was around 7.5 and ammonia nitrogen
was less than 0.2 mg/L (Table 4). In the present study,
dissolved oxygen increased in all the treatments including
control due to photosynthesis and there was no significant
difference among the treatments (p>0.05), while carbon
dioxide was found to be absent. No mortality or plant
deformity was observed in any treatments during the
experiment (p>0.05)
Table 4: Water quality parameters in different treatments during experiment period
Parameter
Treatments
Control (T0)
T1
T2
T3
T4
Temp (°C)
30.77a±0.36
30.78a±0.32
30.69a±0.37
30.63a±0.40
30.76a±0.36
pH
7.52b±0.03
7.41c±0.01
7.49b±0.02
7.61a±0.03
7.43c±0.02
Specific conductivity (µS/cm)
1.07ab ± 0.03
1.04b ± 0.03
1.10a ± 0.02
1.12a ± 0.04
0.99c ± 0.01
Dissolved oxygen(mg/L)
6.12a ± 0.35
6.15a ± 0.62
6.18a ± 0.48
6.26a ± 0.59
6.22a ± 0.84
Free Carbon dioxide (mg/)
Nil
Nil
Nil
Nil
Nil
Total hardness (mg/L)
213.57c±2.66
215.76c±2.37
233.33a±1.50
235.00a±1.71
221.76b±2.10
Total alkalinity (mg/L)
232.40c±0.94
245.57b±1.13
234.14c±0.92
238.94b±1.44
268.19a±1.12
Ammonia-nitrogen (mg/L)
0.04c ± 0.01
0.06b ± 0.02
0.11a ± 0.05
0.06b ± 0.03
0.08ab ± 0.04
Nitrate-nitrogen (mg/L)
0.02b ± 0.01
0.02b ± 0.01
0.04a ± 0.01
0.02b ± 0.01
0.03ab ± 0.01
Nitrite-nitrogen (mg/L)
0.01b ± 0.01
0.01b ± 0.01
0.02a ± 0.01
0.01b ± 0.01
0.01b ± 0.01
Note: Different superscripts in the same column mean significant difference between treatments (Duncan’s multiple
comparisons, P < 0.05).
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Journal of Entomology and Zoology Studies
4. Conclusions
In the present study, the application of cattle manure and
poultry manure illustrated better results during morphological
evaluation of qualitative and quantitative traits of freshwater
ornamental aquatic plant water wisteria. Comparatively, cattle
manure is easily available in local market at cheaper price and
also contains less amount of nitrogen. In conclusion we
suggest that cattle manure @ 2% with soil/sand mixture (2:1)
helps to increase plant length, biomass, and produced good
leaf quality of water wisteria under controlled conditions.
5. Acknowledgement
Authors are thankful to Dean, College of Fisheries, Guru
Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University,
Ludhiana, Punjab for providing the necessary facilities and
financial support for conducting the experiment.
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