STUDIES ON THE EFFECT OF SPENT ENGINE OIL ON PLANT GROWTH IN TRIFOLIUM ALEXANDRENUM (BARSEEM).

Pot Experiment was conducted in controlled laboratory conditions to examine the effect of spent engine effluent on growth of Barseem for six months. Mixed effluent was collected from the oil refining industry, Gurgaon. The spent engine wash contaminated soil was taken from auto market ,Hisar (Hr).T he Farm soil was taken from university’s energy park. For germination tests of seeds, fifteen seeds of Trifolium alexandrenum (Barseem) were sown in pots (duplicates) with different conc.(0, 20, 40, 60 & 80%) of effluent . It was interesting to observe that the diluted effluent (at 20% and 40% concentrations) were more beneficial for the germination of the Trifolium (Barseem) seeds which showed 90% and 85% germination, in comparison to 60% and 80% concentration which showed 68% and 58.8% germination of seeds in comparison to other concentrations. Diluted effluent (20 and 40%) favored less radical growth (1.0 – 0.9cm) than control (1.5 cm). The higher concentrations 60% and 80% favored very less radical growth of (0.7 - 0.5 cm) in comparison to control and other concentration. In regards to effect of effluent, it was noticed that less diluted effluent had negative effect on plant growth as compared to more diluted effluent.