Inuence of feather meal on growth and yield of Amaranthus caudatus

Abstract

Inherent advantages of organic fertilizers are major factors making many farmers to consider their use in crop production systems. This has led to evaluation of the inuence of feather meal on growth and yield of Amaranthus caudatus. The experiment involves both incubation study and eld trials in two seasons. Completely Randomized Design was used for incubation study while Randomized Complete Block Design with four replicates was used for eld trials. The treatments considered were feather meal, compost, mineral fertilizer (NPK 15-15-15) and control (no soil additive). All the treatments (except control) were applied at 100 kg N/ha. The incubated treated soils were air dried and analysed for N. Data collected from eld trials include growth parameters, fresh and dry yield. The data were subjected to Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and means compared using Duncan Multiple Range Test (DMRT) at 5 % probability level. The incubation study showed that feather meal had a higher release of N across the weeks of incubation than NPK while control had the least. Results from the eld trials evealed that feather meal treatment (18 t/ha) at 4 weeks after sowing signicantly (P<0.05) compared favourably with NPK 15-15-15 (20.21 t/ha)

and compost (16.54 t/ha) while it resulted in better performances compared to the control treatment (10.03 t/ha) on the fresh weight of amaranth plants during the dry season, while the rainy season trial followed the same pattern. It could therefore be concluded that Feather meal is a good fertilizer for amaranth production.