Efficacy of Nanofertilizers on Spinach Growth Performance in Medially Polluted Soils

Abstract

Purpose Food security has been a global problem with the sporadic growing population especially in the developing world, Kenya included. Many crop growth enhancers have been used such as conventional fertilizers, biofertilizers to boost food productivity. However, use excessive commercial fertilizer with the notion that some will be eroded and leached eventually causes eutrophication and alters soil pH that increases heavy metal uptake in crops threatening food safety and it has also minimal plant nutrient utilization. Nanoparticles have been used to give slower and timely release of nutrients to plants due to their versatile desirable characteristics. Methods Pot study in green house for contaminated soils were conducted with eight treatments in triplicate; DAP added, NPK added, NPK-DAP added, DAP nanofertilizer, NPK nanofertilizer, NPK-DAP nanofertilizer and non-treated control (ck) treatments, for spinach in the greenhouse study done in Nyakoe, Kisii county. Nine pots were set for each treatment with one seedling each. Nanofertilizers were applied at normal application rates during planting. Spinach plants were left grown for 30 days to 90 days until they matured as the growth performance parameters were being recorded. Results The results shows that there was a significant difference in plant growth performance in pots where nanofertilizers were used, with spinach amended with synthetic ash (nHA) increasing the growth parameters as follows; height (64.29%), dry matter weight (17.55%), leaf diameter (34.54%) and number of leaves (32.39%) while bone ash treatment increased height by (65.34%), dry matter weight (17.52%), leaf diameter (44.34%) and number of leaves (37.24%) when compared to NPK-DAP fertilizer added control. Conclusion Nanofertilizers enhances the growth performance of cropseven when grown in medially polluted sandy-loamy soils of lower fertility, especially in peri-urban farming to boost food productivity to feed ever growing population.