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Lateritic soils are found in many farms even though they have not been known to be encouragingly productive to farmers because of their non-supportive of agricultural products. This experiment was to help farmers whose lands are lateritic to produce more crops/ha when buffered with organic manure. There were six treatments namely: laterite soil, laterite soil buffered with organic manure, laterite soil buffered with NPK 15-15-15, sandy loam soil, sandy loam soil buffered with organic manure (OM) and sandy loam soil buffered with NPK 15-15-15. There were three replicates for each treatments, the arrangement was 2 × 6 × 3 factorial design of 36 pots, parameters measured during the experiment were days to emergency, days to flowering, days to fruiting, number of branches, number of fruits per plant, nodes and internodes, stem girth length, leaf length of plant, plant height (from the surface of the soil to the apex (tip) of the plant) at twice a week and number of leaves per plant counted and recorded each week. The whole arrangements were subjected to the same environmental and climatic conditions. Chemical and physical characteristics of the soil in different treatments were done in the laboratory before and after. The data collected were subjected to two-way ANOVA. The results revealed that seed germination percentage was higher in sandy-loam buffered soil, 92.5%, followed by lateritic buffered soil 87.5%. Statistical analysis showed statistical differences among the yield and yield parameters for types of soil. However, the growth parameters taken as height, number of leaves, fresh and dry weight were found to be higher in sandy-loam soil followed by laterite soil and finally alluvium soil. Statistical analysis of these also showed significant differences between the types of soil used. Laterite buffered soil could yield as high as sandy loam soil in the production of tomatoes.

No abstract

Intercropping as a simultaneous growing of two or more crops in the same field is a cropping system that has long been used for a long time especially in the tropics to increase productivity and sustainability through maximum utilization of land, labor and growth resources, hence the study was conducted to evaluate growth and yield effect of maize variety intercropped with two legumes on the field at the Teaching and Research Farm of Federal University Wukari,Taraba State, Nigeria. The experimental treatments consisted of two legumes as groundnut and bambara nut intercropped with two varieties of maize ( white and yellow). These were laid out on the field using randomized complete block design with three replications .Data were collected on the growth and yield parameters and analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) at 5% level of probability. Results showed that white maize intercropped with groundnut produced significant taller plants and same trend was observed with the number of leaves. Further results revealed that groundnut and white maize intercrop gave the highest Stem girth at 4weeks after planting while the highest 100 seed weight of 25.17g was recorded from white maize and groundnut intercrop. The yield of maize was better when intercropped with legumes. Therefore the combination of white maize and groundnut is recommended as promising option in the maize and legumes intercrop production in the study area.

The experiment was conducted at the teaching and Research farm of the Federal University Wukari Taraba State, Nigeria to assess, evaluate and compare the effect of organic fertilizers such as poultry manure, cow dung, organic manure and inorganic fertilizers such as NPK and urea on the growth and tuber yield of sweet potato. The recommended rates of cow dung (10t/ha) poultry manure (10t/ha), organic manure (10t/ha) NPK15:15:15 (400kg/ha) and urea (200kgN/ha) were applied as treatment to sweet potato with a control at (0kg/ha). These were arranged in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Measurement were taken on the growth and tuber yield at harvest such as the length of primary vein, number of secondary vein number of leaves, number of tuber and tuber weight. Data collected were analyzed using (ANOVA) and the significant means separated using Duncan multiple difference at 5% probability level. The result revealed or showed that numbers of leaves were significant in all the treatments. Application of urea fertilizer produced the highest number of tuber per plant, while tuber weight was not significantly different, but poultry manure application had the higher mean value of (2.34kg). It was concluding that application of poultry manure as organic fertilizer are better and can compare readily with inorganic fertilizer (urea) in the production of sweet potato.