Poultry manure effect on growth and yield of maize

By S. Boateng, J. Zickermann, M. Kornahrens. 2009

210 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The effect of poultry manure application on maize (Zea mays) growth and yields was studied on a Ferric Acrisol in the semi-deciduous rain forest zone of Ghana. Eight treatments of 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 tons of poultry manure (pm) per hectare, 60-40-40 kg NPK/ha, 2 × 2 t pm/ha and 2 t pm + 30-20-20 kg NPK/ha were used in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with five replications. The study showed that poultry manure is a valuable fertilizer and can serve as a suitable alternative to chemical fertilizer in the forest zone of Ghana. Poultry manure treatments produced higher values for height, leaf area index and biomass. The 4 t pm/ha rate produced maize grain yield of 2.07 t/ha which was statistically not different from that of the chemical fertilizer rate (2.29 t/ha) and 6 t pm/ha (2.60 t/ha), while the 6 t pm/ha was not statistically different from the 8 t pm/ha rate. Split application of 4 t pm/ha (i.e. 2 × 2 t pm/ha) and 2 t pm/ha + 30-20-20 kg NPK/ha gave similar biomass and grain yields as the 4 t pm/ha. Poultry manure application registered over 53% increases of N levels in the soil, from 0.09% to 0.14%. Exchangeable cations increased with manure application. The study recommends an application rate of 4 t pm/ha for maize on this type of soil in this agro-ecology

Subfields: Agronomy and Crop Science, Soil Science

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