International Journal of Innovation and Applied Studies ISSN 2028-9324 Vol. 7 No. 3 Aug. 2014, pp. 941-946 © 2014 Innovative Space of Scientific Research Journals http://www.ijias.issr-journals.org/ Corresponding Author: M.A. Salam 941 COMPARATIVE GROWTH PERFORMANCES OF TARO PLANT IN AQUAPONICS VS OTHER SYSTEMS M.A. Salam 1 , M. Y. Prodhan 2 , S. M. Sayem 3 , and M. A. Islam 3 1 Department of Aquaculture, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh 2 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University, Dinajpur-5200, Bangladesh 3 Department of Agricultural Statistics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh Copyright © 2014 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT: Population pressure and land scarcity hindered the development and food security in Bangladesh. To feed the enormous population, farmers increased crop production using chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides which created environmental pollution and health hazards. Therefore, an experiment was carried out as organic farming to investigate the growth performances of Taro plant (Colocasia esculenta) in aquaponics system (T 1 ), hydroponics with tap water (T 2 ) and in soil (T 3 ). The healthy and equal sized Taro seedlings were used in each method and tilapia was used as experimental fish. Water quality parameters were recorded weekly, fish and vegetable growth was monitored fortnightly and soil quality was measured monthly. Two sample t-test was conducted for morphological parameters and coefficient of variation (CV) was measured for biochemical elements to find out the best performed method. The growth of Taro plant was significantly different in various systems. The highest growth was found in T 1 followed by T 3 and T 2 . The mineral contents in the soil were significantly higher than the other systems. Taro plant growth was significantly higher in T 1 as waste water continuously supplied nutrients to the plants, hence, the system can be replicated anywhere in the country irrespective of geographic location and weather to overcome the environmental pollution. KEYWORDS: Aquaponics, hydroponics, vegetables, fish and minerals. 1 INTRODUCTION Aquaponics combines two cultivation systems mainly aquaculture and hydroponics to grow fish and vegetables together in a constructed, re-circulating ecosystem utilizing natural beneficial bacteria to convert fish wastes to plant nutrients [13]. The integration of fish and vegetables creates an ideal growing environment that is more productive than conventional methods [12]. Consequently, aquaponics is gaining more importance now a day because crop production systems are being forced towards increasing irregularities as drought, floods, storms, cyclones and diseases visit regularly. Land gets shrinking, population growth is uncontrolled, weather patterns of the country are heading towards the extreme and our agricultural sectors are suffering with the changing climate. The complex and unpredictable weather creates new challenges to the country’s agriculture that highlighted the importance of developing new crop production system like aquaponics. The aquaponics has control on farming systems which can protect the crops from diseases, heavy rains, floods, drought and hailstones. Moreover, aquaponics permits farmer to be more efficient with water use, to control heat and nutrition, and to protect crops from diseases. The aquaponics is an environmental friendly and sustainable food production system. The aquaponics system has been newly introduced in the country to feed ever increasing population and for food security. Therefore, the present experiment was conducted to observe the comparative growth performances of Taro plant in aquaponics system, hydroponics and soil as traditional method.