RÉSUMÉ
Soilless culture, a modern greenhouse cultivation technology, has rapidly developed in the past 30-40 years and offers a closed-loop system with several benefits, including the recycling of 85-90 percent of irrigation water. As the world population continues to grow at a rate of over 1%, the reduction in land availability per capita for soil-based agriculture has become a major problem, particularly in countries like India with a high population density. Soilless farming offers a viable alternative for growing high-quality vegetables, fruits, and flowers year-round on a variety of substrates, requiring limited space. This approach also aims to eradicate greenhouse soil-related problems such as soil-borne infections, poor soil fertility, and salinity. With several advantages over traditional soil crops, including shorter growth times, year-round production, and fewer diseases and pests, soilless farming comprises various methods such as hydroponics, aeroponics, and aquaponics. The technique has the potential to improve people's lives and boost economic growth by encouraging innovative businesses to engage in agriculture. Therefore, soilless farming has gained traction as an innovative solution to address land scarcity issues while producing high-quality crops sustainably.
RÉSUMÉ
In an aeroponic system, nutrients are directly delivered to the plant roots, which results in the faster growth of crops. Furthermore, aeroponics has been extensively used as a research tool for many difficult-to-propagate plant species. The present investigation shows that the plants grown under the aeroponic system were recorded maximum for all the growth parameters except leaf area which was found maximum under nursery conditions. Among treatments, T3 (three buds per cutting) recorded the maximum for all growth parameters followed by T2 (two buds per cutting) and T1 (one bud per cutting). The interaction effect between propagation systems and the number of buds per cutting showed significant results. S1T3 (three budded cuttings under aeroponic system) recorded maximum for growth parameters viz., intermodal length (4.27 cm), plant height (44.39 cm), number of leaves (16.91), leaf yield (10.79 g/plant), whereas least was recorded by S2T1 i.e., one budded cuttings under nursery (2.39 cm, 35.47 cm, 5.88, 4.84g /plant respectively) at 60 DAT. However, S2T3 recorded a maximum leaf area of 95.96 cm2. From these results, it can be concluded that the aeroponic system could be effectively used for the production of V-1 mulberry saplings.