Abstract
Application of organic mulching is soil management practice that seeks to improve soil moisture conservation, increase soil fertility and improve crop production. The study was carried out to quantify the effect of different organic mulches on some soil properties at three crop stages and maize production under coastal savanna condition. Four treatments of mulch; maize stover (MS), dry grass straw (GS), palm frond (PF) mulches at 3 Mg ha-1 each and no-mulch (NM) (control) with three replications were laid out in a complete randomized block design. After two consecutive cropping seasons, different organic mulches had no significant effect on the examined soil properties at the seed emergence stage. However, at both tasseling and harvest stages, the differences of bulk density, total porosity, organic carbon content and macro-nutrients (NPK) among the treatments were significant and were in the order of GS > MS > PF > NM. The germination rate was in the order of NM (91.0%) > MS (89.9%) > GS (87.9%) > PF (86.8%). The effect of mulches on both the plant height and the LAI was in the order of GS > MS > PF > NM. The increase in grain yield over the control were GS= 23 %, MS= 16 % and PF =15 % while that of the WUE relative to the control were 155 %, 122 % and 58 % for GS, MS and PF respectively. Dry grass mulch could be used to improve soil properties and achieve higher maize production in the study area.
Highlights
Organic mulches can conserve soil moisture, mitigate soil erosion, improve soil conditions, suppress weed growth, and provide organic matter and plant nutrients in the soil (Bilalis et al 2002; Jodaugienė et al, 2006)
The treatments used were maize stover mulch (MS), grass straw mulch (DG), palm frond mulch (PF) and no-mulch (NM) which served as control, and each treatment was replicated thrice
Six maize plants were randomly selected on each plot and tagged for the measurement of the other growth parameters starting from 2 weeks after planting (WAP) to 10 WAP
Summary
Organic mulches can conserve soil moisture, mitigate soil erosion, improve soil conditions, suppress weed growth, and provide organic matter and plant nutrients in the soil (Bilalis et al 2002; Jodaugienė et al, 2006). Mahmood et al (2011) observed that organic mulching conserves soil moisture content by reducing evaporation which in turn mitigates the negative effects of water stress on plant growth and yield especially in semi-arid conditions. In most developing countries, including Ghana, a large number of farmers rely on rainfall for their crop production and it is estimated that about 58 % of the world’s food production comes from rain-fed agriculture (Rosegrant et al, 2002; Rockström et al, 2003). These countries in the tropics experience high evapotranspirative losses of soil moisture due to high temperatures. The objective of the study, is to determine the effect of different organic mulches on soil physico-chemical properties as well as on the growth and yield of maize
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