Open Journal of Ecology, 2023, 13, 257-270 https://www.scirp.org/journal/oje ISSN Online: 2162-1993 ISSN Print: 2162-1985 DOI: 10.4236/oje.2023.135017 May 16, 2023 257 Open Journal of Ecology Phytotoxicity Assessment of Biofertilizer Produced from Bioreactor Composting Technology Using Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) Seeds Eva R. Orlina, Neil Angelo D. Besana, Gene T. Señeris * , Kathleen C. Capiña Department of Plant Science, College of Agriculture, Forestry and Environmental Sciences, Aklan State University, Banga, Philippines Abstract Establishing reliable technological information on the safety of biofertilizers produced from a bioreactor composting technique is a must prior to its commercialization. A phytotoxicity study of biofertilizer made from the bioreactor composting technology at Aklan State University, Banga, Aklan, Philippines was conducted for fourteen (14) days using commercially availa- ble lettuce seeds (Lactuca sativa L.). Standard phytotoxicity attributes such as hypocotyl length, radicle length, relative germination percentage, and relative radicle growth observed during the germination stage were evaluated. Results revealed no significant difference in the radicle lengths of the germinated let- tuce seeds as affected by the varying levels of biofertilizer dilution at H(3) = 10.567, p = 0.061 > 0.05. On the other hand, the hypocotyl length of the let- tuce showed significant differences in response to varying levels of bioferti- lizer dilution with Welch’s F(5, 5.163) = 8.175, p = 0.017 < 0.05. Also, the dif- ferent levels of biofertilizer affected significantly the germination percentage of lettuce seeds F(5, 12) = 5.822, p = 0.006 < 0.05. All levels of biofertilizer treatments indicated a decrease in relative germination percentage. However, those seeds applied with 10% biofertilizer have the highest reduction of ger- mination percentage, equivalent to 86.9% (RGP = 13.10%). All levels of bio- fertilizer showed an increase in radicle growth in contrast to the negative control plant except for the one given a 10% level of biofertilizer. Seeds that received 10% biofertilizer showed an extremely high reduction in radicle growth, equivalent to 72.22% (RRG = 27.78%). The study shows that applying low levels of the bioreactor-produced biofertilizer will observably reduce the measure of the germination characteristics of lettuce seeds, but not necessari- How to cite this paper: Orlina, E.R., Besa- na, N.A.D., Señeris, G.T. and Capiña, K.C. (2023) Phytotoxicity Assessment of Bioferti- lizer Produced from Bioreactor Composting Technology Using Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) Seeds. Open Journal of Ecology, 13, 257-270. https://doi.org/10.4236/oje.2023.135017 Received: April 8, 2023 Accepted: May 13, 2023 Published: May 16, 2023 Copyright © 2023 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access