Abstract
Growth and yield response of sweet maize ( Zea mays L. saccharata Strut.) to rates of poultry manure (PM) and NPK 20-10-10 fertilizer was studied under field condition in 2010 late growing season in Calabar, a humid forest agro ecology of south eastern Nigeria. Treatments comprised of three rates of PM (0, 5 and 10t/ha), factorially combined with four rates of NPK (0, 200, 400 and 600 kg/ha) and arranged into a randomized complete block design with three replications. Application of PM at the highest rate significantly increased plant height, number of leaves/plant, number of cobs/plant, unhusked and dehusked green cob yields and also hastened days to 50% tasselling. The highest rates of PM and NPK maximized leaf area index (LAI), number of grains/cob and harvest index (HI) whereas total dry matter (TDM), weight of grains/cob, cob yield/ha and total grain yield peaked at 10t/ha PM and 400kg/ha NPK fertilizer. The 10t/ha PM rate and 400kg/ha NPK increased TDM by 43 and 91% and total grain yield by 101 and 34% respectively, compared with the control. Poultry manure at 10t/ha in combination with 400kg/ha NPK fertilizer out-yielded other treatments in terms of biomass yield, cob yield/ha, harvest index and total grain yield.
Highlights
Sweet maize (Zea mays L. saccharata Strut.) mostly grown in the United States, East Asia and some European countries, has become popular among the elites in African countries [1]
There was no significant difference between the dry matter yield at 5 and 10t/ha rates of Poultry manure (PM) even though the 10t/ha rate produced a higher yield of 101.97g/plant as against 85.44g/plant
The interaction effect between PM and NPK, showed that the combination of 10t/ha PM with 400kg/ha NPK produced the heaviest total dry matter. This was heavier than the dry matter yield obtainable when either 10t/ha PM or 400kg/ha NPK fertilizer was applied alone and more than twice the dry matter yield obtainable from the untreated control plots
Summary
Sweet maize (Zea mays L. saccharata Strut.) mostly grown in the United States, East Asia and some European countries, has become popular among the elites in African countries [1] It is distinguished from other maize varieties by its delicious taste, high sugar content when in the milk or immature state and by its wrinkled, translucent kernels when dry. Under the characteristically intense rainfall and rapid mineralization, the organic matter level falls drastically and losses of some nutrients especially the cations through leaching occur and this lowers the soil pH. Inappropriate cultural practices such as continuous cropping on these fragile soils and bush burning exacerbated by the sandy nature of the soils further compound the problem [6]. Our objective was to evaluate the performance of sweet maize under the combined use of poultry manure and NPK fertilizer
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