Abstract
For sustainable agriculture nitrogen must be adequately supplied because it is the most limiting major nutrient required by all living plants. This experiment was conducted at the two ecological zones, Sudan savannah in Kano State and Guinea savannah in Bauchi state of Nigeria during the 2016 cropping season. The design of the experiment was Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with seven treatments and four replications in each site. The treatments were; legume fix, alosca, 50 kg N ha-1, cattle manure, legume fix + cattle manure, alosca + cattle manure and control. The result showed that Legume fix had the highest grain N uptake (90.51 kg N ha-1) which differed significantly (P≤0.001) from the rest of the treatments. At Guinea savannah legume fix gave the highest N uptake value (95.53 kg N ha-1) which was significantly different from all treatments except legume fix + cattle manure. However, 50 kg N ha-1 gave the least (48.64 kg N ha-1) even lower than the control and differs significantly with the rest of treatments (P≤0.001). Legume fix gave the highest P uptake value (9.66 kg P ha-1) which significantly differed from all other treatments. At Sudan savannah, significant differences (P ≤ 0.001) occurred between some of the treatments. Alosca + cattle manure recorded the highest K uptake (49.99 kg K ha-1). Result for the fixed N in the Sudan and Guinea savannahs soybean field revealed a significant difference between the treatments and the control.
Highlights
Biological nitrogen fixation is a complex phenomenon which could be affected by many factors both biotic and abiotic
At Guinea savannah legume fix gave the highest N uptake value (95.53 kg N ha-1) which was significantly different from all treatments except legume fix + cattle manure
In the Guinea savannah, soybean field (Figure 3), results followed the same trend in which soil inoculation and combined application of inoculants and cattle manure treatments enhanced K uptake more than the control
Summary
Biological nitrogen fixation is a complex phenomenon which could be affected by many factors both biotic and abiotic. The presence of effective and highly competitive rhizobia is very vital for the success of nodulation and subsequent nitrogen fixation to occur. There are contradicting reports on the role of mineral nitrogen fertilizer in nodule formation. Some workers reported negative influence of nitrogen fertilizer on nitrogen fixation. Some workers reported that there is a need for reasonable amount of nitrogen for the plant to establish itself before nodule formation [3] to [5]. Other researchers have reported the importance of supplementing mineral nitrogen in the establishment of vigorous plant biomass and general crop performance before nodulation commences [3], [4], [6] to [8]
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