Abstract
Poor soil fertility remains the major cause of low crop productivity on smallholder farms that are engaging in vegetable production in sub-Saharan Africa. Appropriate soil fertility regimes are therefore critical for improving crop productivity. Its yield has remained low mainly due to poor soil fertility. A field experiment in two different seasons was planted in a Completely Randomized Block Design using Solanum aethiopicum Shum (Nakati). The treatments were 3 sole fertilizer options applied at the following rates: poultry manure and bio-slurry manure at 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 t ha-1, NPK (25:5:5) at the recommend application rate for tomato which is a sister crop and a control without any fertilizer. Crop budgets were used to determine the economic optimum rates of both sole applications of manure and combinations of manure with NPK. The sole applications and showed significantly (p ≤ 0.05) increased the yield of S. aethiopicum compared with the control. The established biological optimum rates were at 24.19 t ha-1 and 21.51 t ha-1 for poultry manure and bio-slurry respectively. Using the crop budgets it was concluded that the established economic optimum rates were 20 t ha-1 and 10 t ha-1 for sole poultry manure and bio-slurry respectively. Recommendations for use of sole poultry manure and bio- slurry at the rate of 20 t ha-1 and 10 t ha-1 respectively were made.
Highlights
Soil fertility depletion is becoming a serious problem affecting agricultural productivity in Sub- Saharan Africa (SSA) (Bantiono, 2007)
The highest yield of 3701.13±1039.7 kg ha-1 was produced by the application of poultry manure at the rate of 20 t ha-1 followed by poultry manure at the rate of 30 t ha-1 with 3341.77±879.0 kg ha-1
The results of this study illustrate that, in general, use of organic manures especially poultry manure and bio-slurry can lead to better performance and greater yields S. aethiopicum than not using fertilizers
Summary
Soil fertility depletion is becoming a serious problem affecting agricultural productivity in Sub- Saharan Africa (SSA) (Bantiono, 2007). In Uganda vegetable production for Solanacea vegetables especially Nakati (Solanum aethiopicum) is one of the most profitable enterprises in the region (Ssekabembe et al, 2002b), it is highly constrained by soil fertility depletion This is mainly as a result of increased soil erosion, leaching and continuous use of the land without replenishing its nutrients (Sanchez & Jama, 2002). The average yield harvested during the dry season is only 30 t ha-1 (Lester & Seck, 2004) This is largely due lack of adequate nutrient supply resulting from poor soil fertility (Sanchez et al, 1997; Bantiono, 2007)
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