Evaluation of maize growth in Bombax buonopozense plantation

Abstract

This experiment was conducted on the Bombax buonopozense plantation at the arboretum of the Forestry Institute of Nigeria during the wet planting season of year 2014. There were three treatments viz: maize planted within rows of trees under non pruned bombax trees, pruned bombax trees and the control which was an open space with no tree. Data were collected on the height, vigour score, leaf production and shoot dry matter of the maize planted in the different treatments from 3 to 12 weeks after planting. The data were subjected to Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and means separated by Duncan Multiple range tests. It was observed from this study that there were significant differences in the height, crop vigour score, stem diameter, leaf production and shoot dry matter. Maize plants under control performed better than the maize plants under non-pruned and pruned trees but the growth of the maize plants from the three treatments are comparable. This study revealed that maize can be planted in a 5 years old bombax plantation. Farmers interested in timber production can plant trees alongside with their and apply pruning techniques to increase the duration of crop production.

Keywords: Agroforestry, pruning, annual crop production, timber, light interception