Incorporating pigeon pea compost with minjingu fertilizer brands to determine their effects on maize production in Morogoro, Tanzania
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Date
2013-10-24
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
World Journal of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
This study intended to find alternative ways of increasing phosphorus (P) in soils using Minjingu
fertilizer brands since maize yield in Tanzania has been retarded by low soil fertility. Maize (Zea mays
L.) var. TMV-1 was used as a test crop. The treatments used (g per 2.16 m2
plot) were: absolute control
(C), Pigeon pea compost (PP) (100), M-Mazao (MM) (420), Hyper (MH) (160), MM + PP (520) and MH + PP
(260). The results showed that Agronomic Efficiency (AE) varied significantly (p <0.001) among
treatments. Harvest index (HI) also differed significantly (p ≤0.05). This study revealed that exclusive
application of Minjingu Hyper fertilizer to maize proves to be superior to Minjingu Mazao fertilizer by
having the highest harvest index (24.7%) with relatively high maize yield (2.94 t ha 1
). The former
fertilizer brand compares better with the latter, which produced yield of 1.65 t ha-1 and harvest index of
6.94%. Furthermore, upon incorporation of pigeon pea compost, Minjingu Mazao fertilizer recorded the
highest yield (3.85 t ha 1). This differed slightly numerically but was statistically similar with yield obtained when compost was incorporated with Minjingu Hyper fertilizer (3.64 t ha 1).
Description
Journal article
Keywords
Compost, Maize yield, Minjingu fertilizer brands