Abstract
A greenhouse study was conducted at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, to evaluate the effect of composted oil palm bunch waste for improvement of some soil physical properties, organic matter status and growth of oil palm seedlings under different water management conditions. The experiment was a 4 x 3 factorial fitted into the completely randomized design with three replications. It consisted of 2 fac-tors–composted oil palm bunch waste and irrigation intervals. Composted oil palm bunch waste was applied at 0g, 100g, 200g and 300g/seedlings/polybag. The different moisture regimes were imposed by observing irrigation intervals of 7days, 14days and 21days after irrigating the soil in the polybag to field capacity water content. The result showed that every 14-day interval of irrigation significant (P<0.05) gave the lowest bulk density, as well as highest aggregate stability, mean weight diameter and organic matter compared to 7 and 21-day intervals of irrigation. Similarly, every 14 days, irrigation intervals showed a (P<0.05) effect on all growth parameters of oil palm seedlings throughout the growth period. However, the lowest (P<0.05) bulk density, dispersion ratio as well as highest (P<0.05)aggregate stability, mean weight diameter and soil organic matter were observed with the highest rates of 300gcompost/polybag compared to other compost rates. Results also indicated that the application of 300gcompost/seedlings gave the highest (P<0.05) effect on all growth parameters studied compared to other compost application rates. Generally, the application of 300g compost/seedlings/polybag was most effective in improving the soil properties and growth of oil palm seedlings under 14-day irrigation intervals.
Keywords:
properties
composted
seedlings
different
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