Assessing the effect of chicken manure-based fertigation for improved crop performance of tomato and cabbage

Abstract

To determine the most appropriate chicken manure-based fertigation regime for improved yield and quality of tomato and cabbage, a three-replicate RCBD field experiment was set up at MUARIK (0° 27.9428' N, 32° 36.796' E) with sandy loam soils of Field Capacity of 0.33 cm³ water/cm³ soil, and Permanent Wilting Point of 0.24 cm³ water/cm³ soil. Three treatments and two controls were set up: mass compositions of 100% deep-litter manure (T1), 100% battery-cage manure (T2) and 50% battery-cage + 50% deep-litter manure (T3), rainfed without fertigation (R) and Water only (W). Liquid concentrations of the three manure treatments were extracted, characterized and applied to the crops. Weather and soil moisture conditions were monitored daily for irrigation scheduling. The fertigation schedule intended to provide the crops with their net nutrient requirements. For each crop treatment and replicate, data on crop growth parameters and yield were recorded. Proximate analysis for was done for crop physical-chemical quality parameters. A one-way ANOVA and Turkeys’ multiple comparison test conducted in R studio were used to test significance at 5% significance level. Averagely, the nutrient composition in mg/l for the treatments were N505±25.96, P368.53±25.23 and K596.98±32.20 for T1, N841±25.76, P660.98±22.23 and K661.98±31.19 for T2, and N673±24.97, P690.27±25.23 and K719.18±32.19 for T3. Nutrient composition of T1 was significantly different from T2 (p= 3.2e-06) and T3 (p= 5.3e-05). Results showed that crop growth parameters generally improved with increase in amount of nutrient in the treatments. For tomato, the highest total yield of 18.35±0.004 kg/m2 was realized with T2 followed T1, T3, W and R with 14.11±0.005 kg/m2, 13.82±0.0005 kg/m2, 11.85±0.004 kg/m2 and 9.89±0.004 kg/m2 respectively. Cabbage registered highest yield of 8.81±0.001 kg/m2 with T2 followed by T3, T1, W and R with 6.35±0.001 kg/m2, 5.88±0.001 kg/m2 3.37±0.001 kg/m2 and 1.49±0.001 kg/m2 respectively. Where available, Battery cage is the most suitable composition for increased yield of tomato and cabbage.