Effects of organic manure and NPK mineral fertilizer on the growth and yield of eggplant (Solanum spp L.) varieties in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria

Abstract

Field experiment was conducted at the students’ Demonstration Federal College of Forestry, Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria to determine the effects of organic manure and NPK mineral fertilizer on the growth and yield of eggplant varieties. A factorial experiment was used for this study involving two organic manure sources (poultry droppings and cow dung each applied at 10t/ha) with NPK fertilizer applied at 300 kg/ha (as control) and three eggplant varieties (dark green, white-green striped and light green) replicated three (3) times. Data were collected from five randomly tagged plants from each plot on growth (plant height, number of leaves, number of branches and stem girth) and yield (days to 50% flowering, number of fruits/plant, fruit weight and total yield) characters and were analyzed using XLSTAT 18 statistical package and where significance was declared, means were separated using Turkey's test at 5% probability level. The result indicates that application of poultry manure at 10t/ha produced the highest plant height (103.89cm), number of leaves(128.67), number of branches (13.67), stem girth (6.47cm), number of fruits/plant (26.33), fruit weight (570.00g) and total yield(28.00 tha-1). Solanum gilo, was found to perform better that the other two varieties on plant height (105.78cm), number of leaves(120.67), number of branches (12.78), stem girth (6.09cm), number of fruits/plant (25.22), fruit weight (543.33g) and total yield(30.55tha-1). Therefore, organic manure in the form of poultry droppings at the rate of 10 t/ha and Solanum gilo variety should be used by farmers who embark on large scale production of eggplant in the study area maximum yield and productivity.