Effect of soil moisture content and organic fertilizer on the growth of roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa l.) grown on bris soil.

Beach Ridges Interspersed with Swales (BRIS) soil is a type of soil that is sandy and have not been widely used in agricultural sector due to its low soil fertility. In order to study the growth respond of crop on BRIS soil, Hibiscus sabdariffa L. or Roselle has been used to be planted on this sandy soil. The experiment was carried out at Agropark area, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan in Jeli Campus. The objectives of this experiment were to determine the effects of soil moisture content and organic fertilizer on the growth of Hibiscus sabdariffa and to select the treatment that is suitable for the optimum growth and development of Hibiscus sabdariffa on BRIS soil. Compost fertilizer was used as the organic fertilizer. The irrigation process was determined by the soil moisture content at the field capacity which is 80% and 40%. Meanwhile the soil media were prepared by mixing compost fertilizer with BRIS soil at ratio 0 to 1, 1 to 2 and 1 to 3 respectively. The growth parameters that were measured weekly were the number of leaves, height (cm) meanwhile dry mass of the plants were measured after two months. The data were analysed using analysis of variance to determine whether there are significant differences on the selected growth parameters of Hibiscus sabdariffa due to treatments. The results showed that soil moisture content gave only significant effects on the height parameter and Relative Growth Rate (RGR) of the plants. Meanwhile type of soil media that being used were significantly affecting all the growth parameters of the plants. The findings shown that the treatments that is suitable for an optimum growth of Hibiscus sabdariffa on BRIS soil is the media that were the mixture of 1 to 2 ratio of compost fertilizer and BRIS soil with 40% soil moisture content (M2SM40) which gave the highest growth performance within the period of experiment.