Abstract
Conventional retting over 20-25 d in stagnant water results in the production of poor-quality fibre in jute -growing countries which created a need for the development of an effective retting technology. Several retting technologies involving region-specific microbial consortia were reported with limited information on field effectiveness, storability, environmental impact, and cost analysis. In this study a retting formulation, NINFET-Sathi was introduced as a microbial food supplement to promote the growth of the retting microbial population irrespective of location. NINFET-Sathi resulted in 8-10.5% higher yield of jute fibre with 1-1.5 grade improvement within 10-12 d over conventional retting. Unlike earlier reported microbial-retting technologies, NINFET-Sathi did not introduce any new microbe into the retting system. It accelerated the growth of native pectinolytic and xylanolytic microbial populations in the retting water. This formulation improved bundle strength by 10.8-15.3%, fineness by 14.7-22.8%, and colour by 27.9-33.1% with low defects (0.56-0.61% by weight) and root content (7.11-7.68% by length) leading to higher fibre quality (TD-2) over conventional retting (TD-3) consistently for three years of storage. Long storability also offered scopes of distant transport of NINFET-Sathi formulation to jute growing areas with difficulty to reach. Post-retting water with NINFET-Sathi was found to meet water standards for aquaculture and irrigation and resulted in 9.1-24.7% high seed germination in rice, Bengal gram, green gram, and Indian mustard over the pre-retting water. Application of NINFET-Sathi retting technology holds potential for jute farmers to harness a net additional income of nearly USD 257 per ha.