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Effect of NPK and organo-mineral fertilizer on the growth and yield of jute mallow (Corchorus Olitorius) in Ilorin north central Nigeria
Abstract
The Southern Guinea Savannah zone of Nigeria comprises thousands of hectares of arable land which are used for the cultivation of crops such as maize, cassava, guinea corn, vegetable crops etc and the people in the zone are predominantly peasant farmers who rely on low inputs for the growing of their crops. Nevertheless, the environment is subjected to constant bush fire, which degrades the vegetative cover, predisposes the soil to direct sunlight, and depletes the organic matter content of the soil with the resultant soil erosion and subsequent low soil fertility. A study was conducted at the Teaching and Research Farm of the University of Ilorin, Ilorin a Southern Guinea Savannah zone of Nigeria during the dry and wet seasons of 2012 to evaluate the effect of NPK fertilizer and organo-mineral fertilizer on the growth and yield of jute mallow (Corchorus olitorius) a local delicacy. The treatments imposed were three levels of NPK 15:15:15 at 0, 100 and 200kgha-1 and five levels of organo-mineral fertilizer at 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4t/ha in a 3 x 5 factorial scheme fitted into a randomized complete block design (RCBD) replicated thrice. Data were collected on growth parameters –plant height, number of branches, number of leaves, fresh weightper plantand per hectare. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) for all measurements was performed using Genstat version 12 software package. The results showed that application of organo-mineral and inorganic fertilizer and their combination significantly (P<0.05) influenced the growth and yield of jute over the control.
Keywords: Organo-mineral, NPK, growth, yield and Corchorus olitorius
