BELAGAVI: Would you believe if someone told you that you could use discarded human hair to grow plants in your garden? In the first instance, the answer will be no. But two girls from Belagavi have proved this wrong.
Khushi Angolkar and Reminika Yadav, Class 9 students of Kendriya Vidyalaya-2, have grown vegetables using fertiliser developed from human hair.
Four months ago, they started their research at ICMR-National Institute of Traditional Medicine, Belagavi, under the supervision of scientist Dr Harsha of ICAR. They also got guidance from scientists Sridevi Angadi, Pravin Yadahalli and Shantappa Varad of ICAR- KLE Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Mattikopp. After some research, they found that human hair contains a good amount of nutrients required to enhance plant growth and they produced a liquid organic
fertilizer.
The field experiments were conducted by sowing tomato, cabbage and chilli seeds and the results were encouraging.
Their idea stood unique at the state-level children’s science event, after which they were selected for national children’s science congress. They are further confident of this formula as they used it in a 45-day process to grow spinach on the premises of Lingaraj College.
They cultivated spinach in 24 plots ( 2m X 1m each). While 50% of the cultivated area was treated with their hair fertiliser twice, traditional organic fertiliser was used in the remaining 50% of the field. After 45 days, the duo was surprised to observe that the crop cultivated using their fertiliser weighed 2.3 kg and the spinach grown using traditional fertiliser weighed just 1.7 kg.
The duo are further set to present their research works in the KV national children science competition which is scheduled to be held in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh on November 25.