EFFECT OF SUNLIGHT PERIODS ON GROWTH OF MORNING GLORY MICROGREENS

Abstract

Nowadays, morning glory microgreens have received increasing attention by producers and consumers due to the presence of several bioactive compounds. Although, they are easy to grow at home and not necessary to provide fertilizer when using a soil to grow them. Among all environment factors, light plays the most important roles affecting their growth. This research aims to study, we investigated the effects of sunlight exposure on growth of morning glory microgreens in a complete randomized design (CRD) in three replications. There were three treatments: 1) in the dark (no light) throughout the treatment, 2) in the dark for 2 days before being exposed to sunlight, and 3) in sunlight throughout the experiment. The optimum growth of the morning glory microgreens was cultivation in the dark for 2 days and then in sunlight at room temperature for 7 days. The average seedling weight and germination percentage were 433.74 mg/plant and 74.17%, respectively. The hypocotyl width, seedling height, and leaf length were 0.16, 8.67, and 1.27 cm, respectively. Apart from that, sunlight influenced on positively correlated with seedling height and seedling weight of the morning glory microgreens (R²>0.90), but no with hypocotyl width. Seedling height and weight had an effect on the yield of morning glory microgreens and are important for commercial growers to enhance productivity and improve quality, potentially a broadening of retail marketing of morning glory microgreens.