Response of sweet corn (Zea mays L. var. saccharata) to vermicompost and inorganic fertilizer application

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the appropriate rate of vermicompost that would influence the agronomic performance and evaluate the effect of combining the different vermicompost rates and the specific rate of inorganic fertilizer that could effectively promote the growth and yield of sweet corn. The experiment was conducted in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with ten (10) treatments and three (3) replications. The treatments are as follows: T1 – 120-90-60 kg ha-1 inorganic fertilizer or farmers’ practice, T2 – 5 t ha-1 vermicompost + 102-76.5-51 kg ha-1 inorganic fertilizer, T3 – 10 t ha-1 vermicompost + 96-72-48 kg ha-1 inorganic fertilizer, T4 – 20 t ha-1 vermicompost + 84-63-42 kg ha-1 inorganic fertilizer, T5 – 40 t ha-1 vermicompost + 60-45-30 kg ha-1 inorganic fertilizer, T6 – no application (control group), T7 – 5 t ha-1 vermicompost, T8 – 10 t ha-1 vermicompost, T9 – 20 t ha-1 vermicompost, and T10 – 40 t ha-1 vermicompost. Results of the study revealed that the different treatments influenced the ear yield (husked and unhusk), kernels per ear, weight per ear, percentage of marketable ears, percentage of barren plants, and percentage of double ears. The treatments 1 to 5 yielded significantly higher compared to the control treatment (T6) which implies that the application of vermicompost with 50 - 85% of the farmers’ practice had significant improvement in sweet corn production. The application of 20 t ha-1 vermicompost + 70% of farmers’ practice achieved the highest yield at 12.50 and 15.80 t ha-1 husked and unhusk ears respectively. Highest percentage of double ears at 29.69% was attained on the plants applied with 40 t ha-1 vermicompost + half of farmers’ practice. The yields of sweet corn applied with vermicompost alone were not comparable to treatments applied with inorganic fertilizers.