Effects of Cow Dung Treated to Various Management Practices and Nitrogen Levels on Maize Grain Yield in the Northern Guinea Savanna of Nigeria

Abstract

This study consisted of collection and incubation of cow dung, followed by evaluation of the incubated cow dung in field experiments in years 2003 to 2004 at the Institute of Agricultural Research, Ahmadu Bello University and Samaru College of Agriculture farms, all located in Samaru, Zaria. The objectives of this study are to determine the effects of subjecting cow dung to different management practices and nitrogen fertilizer on maize grain yield. The study was a factorial experiment, with 3 cow dung management practices, 4 storage durations in the field and 2 levels of nitrogen. There was a control treatment, where no cow dung or nitrogen fertilizer was applied. These gave a total of 25 treatment combinations, laid out in a randomized complete block design, replicated three times. The results showed that, the best cow dung management practice that gave the highest maize grain yields in the two farms was the surface heaped covered in April, nitrogen amended treatment. The non N amended treatments were not able to significantly increase the maize grain yields than the untreated control.

PRODUCTIVITY OF GROUNDNUT (Arachis hypogaea L.) AS INFLUENCED BY VARIETY AND SPACING IN NINGI LGA, BAUCHI STATE, NIGERIA

“…However, the yield superiority of these two genotypes was not reflected in their ancessors characters. Tanimu et al (1998). This is attributed to difference in their genetic composition and also the genotype and environment interaction.…”

The Implication of Cation Exchange Capacity (Cec) Assessment for Soil Quality Management and Improvement

“…The importance of soil organic matter can perhaps best be described through the sentence that it represents the blood of the soil (Jungkunst, 2010). Its importance is also reflected in the characteristics that it serves as a reservoir of nutrients for plants by adsorbing nutrients, transforming them and protecting them from losses, which contributes to higher values of the capacity for cation exchange, and also affects the improvement of the physical properties of the soil, providing a medium for growth and the activity of microbes, significantly affects the buffering capacity of the soil when applying acids and bases, which makes it less susceptible to changes in pH value, and also affects the release of organic acids during decomposition, which in the soil affect the processes of wear and transformation of rock minerals (Alhassan et al, 2018;Tanimu andLiocks, 2013 andTotsche et al, 2010). Studies on the effect of spatial variability of soil properties also indicate that soil organic matter and cation exchange capacity are strongly influenced by external factors such as agricultural production, soil management, as well as internal factors such as soil type and depth (Adugna and Abegaz, 2015).…”