Browsing by Author "Mogire, Osoro Erick"

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    Soil Amendment and Irrigation Influence on Growth, Yield, Quality and Heavy Metal Uptake in French Beans in Machakos County, Kenya
    (Kenyatta University, 2025-06) Mogire, Osoro Erick
    French bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), known for its nutritional value and quick maturation period, is a crop that is farmed extensively. Heavy metal accumulation in tissues occurs when this crop is consistently watered with water that is contaminated. The salinity and heavy metal load in salt-affected soils can be significantly reduced with the intervention of soil amendments and irrigation methods. The main objective of the study was to contribute to yield and quality performance of French beans under different soil amendments and irrigattion with heavy metal polluted water. The experimental site was situated in Machakos County's Kabaa irrigation scheme. The experiment was carried out during the long rains (March to May 2022) and short rains (October to December 2021) of two successive cropping seasons. The experiment was laid as a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) in three replicates in a split-plot arrangement. The main plot was irrigation methods (furrow and basin), while the sub-plots comprised of soil amendments (farmyard manure, gypsum+farmyard, vermicompost, fertium non-salt, and control). Data collected was subjected to Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) using R-software 2023, version 4.4. The Honestly Significance Difference (HSD) was used to separate means at a 5% significance level where there were significant differences. Among the soil amendments, during the long rains at 6WAE gypsum+farmyard manure treatment was most significant with the highest plant height (67.80 cm), shoot dry weight (44.41g), pod dry weight (0.41g), pod length (15.97 cm), number of seeds per pod (14.50), nitrogen pod concentration (9.90 g/kg), phosphorus pod concentration (60.04 g/kg), and potassium pod concentration (68.92 g/kg), with control indicating the least results of the mentioned parameters in both seasons and these differences were significant at p≤0.05. Basin irrigation resulted in maximum parameters compared to furrow irrigation during the long rains at 6WAE under plant height (53.98cm), shoot dry weight (32.13g), pod dry weight (0.26g), pod length (13.42cm), number of seeds per pod (11.06), and nitrogen pod concentration (6.42g/kg), phosphorus pod concentration (36.80g/kg), and potassium pod concentration (47.95g/kg). Vermicompost application resulted in significantly (p≤0.05) lower metal concentrations, heavy metal uptake, mobility index, and transfer factor of lead, cadmium and copper. Results revealed that in season two (Long rains), vermicompost was the most significant under pods whereby lead recorded a transfer factor of 0.0004, uptake of 0.0038kg/ha, mobility index of 0.3078, and concentration of 0.013mg/kg compared to other soil amendments). For cadmium in season two during the long rains under vermicompost treatment in pods, the concentration was 0.0021mg/kg, mobility index of 0.0476, uptake of 0.0582kg/ha, and transfer factor of 0.006. For copper in pods, mobility index was 0.342, concentration was 0.48mg/kg and uptake of 0.02kg/ha and transfer factor were 0.010 under vermicompost treatment during long rains. The findings of the study demonstrated that vermicompost application and furrow irrigation were the most significant in reducing uptake, concentration and mobility of heavy metals in French bean tissues. The study recommends the adoption of vermicompost and furrow irrigation as an approach to minimize the uptake, concentration and mobility of heavy metals in French bean tissues.