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.