SOIL AND SOIL RELATED PROPERTIES, COVER CROPS, EFFECT OF PLANTING DATESON THE YIELD OF MAIZE (ZEA MAYS L.) IN SAMARU, NIGERIA
SOIL AND SOIL RELATED PROPERTIES, COVER CROPS, EFFECT OF PLANTING DATESON THE YIELD OF MAIZE (ZEA MAYS L.) IN SAMARU, NIGERIA
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Date
2019-12
Authors
AJIDE, Oluwaseun Jeremiah
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Abstract
Declining soil quality is emerging as an environmental and economic issue of global concern,
because degraded soils are becoming prevalent due to intensive use and poor soil
management. Declining soil productivity due to poor soil quality (particularly Carbon and
Phosphorus deficiency and high bulk density) has been a major limiting factor to food
production in Nigeria. Also, failure in establishing rainfall onset usually affects farmers
negatively in the Northern Guinea Savanna Ecological Zone (NGSEZ) for proper planning of
cropping activities. This call forPrediction of optimum rainfall so as to validate effective
planting dates for high maize yield in the Northern Guinea Savanna zone, two consecutive
years‟ field trials were conducted in 2016 and 2017 rainy seasons at the Institute for
Agricultural Research (IAR) farm located at Samaru (latitude 11o1‟N and Longitude 7o3‟E)
in the NGSEZ of Nigeria to study the effect ofcover crops and planting dateson
maizeyield.using Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD)in factorial arrangement with
a combination of four planting dates and two cover crop Centrosema pascuorum and
Cucurbitamaxima and no cover treatment replicated three times. Data generated was
analyzed using SAS statistical package. The combined Result shows, the variation in the
climatic data over the 35 years and during the two year of the experiment shows that maize
can be grown over a wide range of climate with an optimum yield under adequate
management. Planting dates statistically influenced grain yield in both first and second weeks
of planting 4.08 and 4.01 tons/hectare similar to plots with no cover crop while the value for
the last planting date (3.86) ton/hectare is similar to the plot with cover 3.78 Centrosema
perscurum and 3.71Cucurbita maxima. physical soil properties such as (moisture and
hydraulic conductivity) and climate (rainfall and temperature) are relevant to determine best
planting date and optimum crop germination before the start of dry spell mostly experienced
in the second to third week of June in these experiment.when subjected to Principal
Component Analysis (PCA) to indicate their level of contribution to the maize yield. The soil
quality assessment on the four planting dates evaluated in the study indicates that no cover
and the two cover crop has same ranking while planting date one and two is better than third
and fourth planting dates 1=best while 5=worst, CP=centrocema pascuroum, CM=cucubita
maxima,NO=no cover, A= planting 1, B=planting date 2, C=planting date 3,D=planting date 4, SQ=soil quality.
Description
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES,
AHMADU BELLO UNIVESITY, ZARIA, NIGERIA
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR AWARD OF
MASTERS DEGREE IN SOIL SCIENCE
DEPARTMENT OF SOIL SCIENCE,
FACULTY OF AGRICULTURE,
AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY,
ZARIA
Keywords
SOIL,, SOIL RELATED PROPERTIES,, COVER CROPS,, EFFECT,, PLANTING DATESON,, YIELD,, MAIZE,, (ZEA MAYS L.),, SAMARU,, NIGERIA