APPLICATION OF ORGANIC MANURE DERIVED FROM FOUR SOURCES AS SOIL FERTILITY MANAGEMENT STRATEGY FOR GINGER (Zingiber officinale) PRODUCTIVITY IN NIGERIA
Nutrition is found to exert a great influence on growth and yield of ginger and an agronomic technologies influencing its productivity. Imbalance, low or no fertilizer application is one of the most important factors in obtaining poor yield. Hence, the trial was taken to study the effect of four organic manures (cow dung, pig, poultry, and household waste) on growth and yield of ginger (Zingiber officinale) at the Department of Agricultural Science experimental station Federal College of Education Pankshin, located at 9010“N and 9026“E. Soil sample of the experimental site were collected with soil auger, air-dried and sieved with wire mesh; Bouyoucos hydrometer method were used to determine particle size. The experimental designed used was randomized Complete Block Design laid out in a split-plot design with 3 replications. Ginger rhizomes was cut into sett and planted at the depth of 5cm and at 3 different planting distances at their respective plots. The growth and yield parameters observed were plant height, leaf number, number of tillers; rhizome fresh weigh, and rhizome size. Data collected were subjected to Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and significantly different means were separated using LSD and DMRT at 5% level of probability. Results showed that growth parameters treated with household waste produced the highest (55.26cm, 126.11cm, and 6.08cm). This was followed by pig manure (52.02cm, 115.58cm, and 5.89cm) respectively. The least mean values of 43.04cm, 72.31cm, and 4.27cm were obtained from the control. While T3 recorded highest fresh weight (313.07) followed by T4 (203.13) and least at T0 (195.66). The general results indicated that organic manures in the forms of household waste, pig dung, poultry manure, and cow dung have great tendency to increase productivity of ginger.
Keywords: Organic fertilizer, Ginger productivity. Growth parameter, Yield components.
