ISSN (Print): 2328-3777, ISSN (Online): 2328-3785, ISSN (CD-ROM): 2328-3793 American International Journal of Research in Formal, Applied & Natural Sciences AIJRFANS 14-153; © 2014, AIJRFANS All Rights Reserved Page 90 AIJRFANS is a refereed, indexed, peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary and open access journal published by International Association of Scientific Innovation and Research (IASIR), USA (An Association Unifying the Sciences, Engineering, and Applied Research) Available online at http://www.iasir.net ORGANIC AMENDMENTS INFLUENCING GROWTH, HEAD YIELD AND NITROGEN USE EFFICIENCY IN CABBAGE (Brassica oleracea var. capitata L.) Ranjit Chatterjee 1 *, S. Bandhopadhyay 2 and J. C. Jana 1 1 Department of Vegetable and Spice Crops 2 Department of Agronomy Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Pundibari, Cooch Behar-736165(W.B), India I. Introduction Cabbage (Brassica oleracea var.capitata L.) is an important winter season vegetable grown throughout the country. The marketable head is an excellent source of vitamins, minerals and dietary fibers and consumed fresh as salad and cooked as vegetable or utilized as processed product. Cabbage is a heavy feeder of nutrients and to increase the head yield farmers are indiscriminately using the inorganic source of nitrogenous fertilizers. Though excess nitrogen increases the total dry biomass but it adversely affects the head quality by producing coarse and loose head, reduces keeping quality, enhances the nitrate nitrogen content of head and above all deteriorates the soil health (Chatterjee, 2009). Therefore, nitrogen management have significant influence on crop growth, head yield and soil health. Organic manures act as a store house of plant nutrients. They played direct role in supplying macro and micro nutrients and indirectly in improving the physical, chemical and biological properties of soil (Palaniappan and Siddeswaran, 1994). The incorporation of organic source of nutrients in the form of vermicompost, farmyard manure and biofertilizes is known to influence the availability and uptake of nitrogen thereby enhances the crop growth and yield (Bahadur et al., 2003; Chatterjee et al., 2006; Sharma et al., 2012). Vermicompost is the product of ingested biomass by earthworm after undergoing physical, chemical and microbial transformations and available in the form of cast. Besides macro and micronutrients it also contains humic acids, plant growth promoting substances like auxins, gibberellins, and cytokinins (Krishnamoorthy and Vajrabhiah, 1986), N-fixing and P-solubilizing bacteria, enzymes and vitamins (Ismail, 1997). Application of farmyard manure also influenced the nitrogen availability and crop growth. Again azotobacter and phosphate solubilizing bacteria containing biofertilizess harbor beneficial micro organism and mobilizes nutritive elements from insoluble to soluble form (Bhattacharya et al., 2000). Estimation of nitrogen use efficiency of different nutrient sources will help to judge the amount of dry matter produced per unit of nitrogen applied or absorbed, which will not only augment the efficiency of different nutrient sources but will also minimize the ill effect of over use of chemicals. However under acid soil of eastern Himalayan region the use efficiency of applied nitrogen is very low due to over use of inorganic nitrogen source and poor activity of beneficial soil microbes in adverse situation. Keeping the above in view the present work was formulated to Abstract: Cabbage is heavy feeder of nutrients and demands adequate nitrogen for biomass production. Amount of dry matter produced per unit of nitrogen applied or absorbed can be judged by estimating the nitrogen use efficiency of different nutrient sources used for cabbage cultivation. Field experiments were conducted at UBKV, Pundibari, West Bengal, India to access the influence of different nutrient source on growth, head yield and nitrogen use efficiency in cabbage. The experiment comprised of 15 different nutrients source combining inorganic fertilizers, organic manures (farmyard manure and vermicompost) and Azophos biofertilizers were laid out in RBD with 3 replications. Growth and head attributes of cabbage were significantly influenced by different nutrient combination and vermicompost emerged as better organic nutrient source over farmyard manure. Inoculation with biofertilizers exerted more positive result over uninoculated treatments. The nutrient schedule comprising of higher amount of vermicompost (5 t/ha) along with 75% of recommended inorganic fertilizers in presence of biofertilizes inoculation emerged as potential nutrient source and resulted in many fold improvement in the form of vigorous growth, advanced head maturity, maximum curding percent and highest head yield as compared other nutrient combination. The different parameters of nitrogen use efficiency (PFP, AE, PUE and AR) were markedly enhanced by the same nutrient combination. Keywords: Organic amendments; inorganic fertilizers; nitrogen use efficiency; cabbage growth and head yield.