Biomass accumulated by Mansonia altissima A Chev. seedlings under the effect of Arbuscular mycorrhiza, fertilizer application and moisture supply

Abstract

Mansonia altissima is an indigenous hard wood species, which of great use both locally and internationally, this has led to much pressure being put on them, which in turn caused over-exploitation. This study investigated the effect of mycorrhiza, fertilizer and moisture supply on the biomass accumulation of M. altissima seedlings. Seedlings were monitored under these three factors at 3 levels each mycorrhiza (0g, 10g and 20g), fertilizer (0g, 1g and 2g) and water supply ((once in a week, twice in a week and everyday, 1/7, 4/7, and 7/7 respectively). The study was conducted in 3x3x3 factorial experiment in completely Randomized Design (CRD) and subjected to ANOVA. The study revealed that mycorrhiza does not have significant effect on the dry matter of M. altissima seedlings while fertilizer and watering regime had significant effect at (p>0.05) on leaf dry weight, (LDW), stem dry weight (SDW), root dry weight (RDW) and total dry weight (TDW). It was observed that seedlings LDW ranged from 1.22g to 2.42g, SDW ranged 0.39g to 0.81g, RDW ranged from 0.23 to 0.49 and TDW ranged from 11.83g to 3.67g respectively after 24 weeks. The biomass accumulated by M. altissima under the interaction of three factors revealed that M2F2W3seedligs treated with 10g mycorrhiza, 1g of N P K fertilizer and watering everyday was higher compared to other interactions, this implies that M. altissima preferred little fertilizer application and watering everyday for optimum biomass production

Keywords: Indigenous, biomass accumulation, mycorrhiza, fertilizer, and Mansonia altissima