RP-School of Agriculture And Enterprise Development

Permanent URI for this community

https://repository.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/1317

Browse

Browsing RP-School of Agriculture And Enterprise Development by Subject "Acid soil"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Effect of lime and goat manure on soil acidity and maize (Zea mays) growth parameters at Kavutiri, Embu County- Central Kenya
    (Academic Journals, 2015) Gitari, Harun I.; Mochoge, B. E.; Danga, B. O.
    A greenhouse pot experiment was conducted to determine the effect of agricultural lime and goat manureon soil acidity and maize growth parameters using soils from Kavutiri-Embu County. Nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers at the rates of 50 and 70 kg ha-1, respectively, and goat manure at three rates (0, 5 and 10 mg ha-1) and agricultural lime (CaCO3) at six rates (0, 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, and 12.5 mg ha-1) were used for the study. The pot experiment was arranged in a complete randomised design and replicated three times. Maize, variety H513as test crop, was grown for a period of 8 weeks. The results were measured on maize crop parameters (plant heights, root lengths and dry matter biomass) and soil parameters (soil pH and exchangeable acidity). All the biophysical data generated were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the difference between the treatments means separated using the Fischer’s least significant difference at 5% probability level. Linear correlation analyses were done using the Microsoft Excel 2010. Results generally showed that soil acidity decreased with increasing levels of manure and lime. The treatment with 12.5 Mg ha-1 of lime and 10 Mg ha-1 of manure had the best reducing effect on soil acidity and better maize yield performances reflected in the highest pH (6.3), highest root length (41.3 cm), plant height (150.3 cm) and dry biomass weight (755.4 kg ha-1) obtained.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Leaching of plant nutrients from an acid forest soil after nitrogen fertilizer application
    (Springer Verlag, 1986) Mochoge, B. O.
    In a laboratory experiment, the effect of nitrogen fertilizers on the leaching patterns and input-output budgets of plant nutrients in an acid soil (dystric cambisols) was studied. An amount of N corresponding to 80 kg/ha was applied to the top surface of undisturbed soil columns of 30 cm layers with a diameter of 14.4 cm as Ca(NO3)2 or (NH4)2SO4. After establishing steady state flow condition, a flux of 0.5 cm solution/column was applied daily for 60 days. The leachates were collected and analysed every four days. It was found that not only the amount and quality of the applied cation influences the leaching pattern of plant nutrients in an acid soil but also the accompanying anion. To interpret leaching data properly, it was necessary to know the magnitude of N transformed in the different processes. Although the two applied salts influenced plant nutrient transport in different ways, total outputs of cations and anions were somewhat similar though outputs after (NH4)2SO4 were slightly higher than after Ca(NO3)2 addition.