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Effect of Recycled Plant Residues Used as Bio-Fertilizers on Early Growth of Maize in North-Western Nigeria

Sanda A and Anka SA

This research was conducted at the botanical garden of the Usman Danfodiyo University Sokoto Nigeria, using digested plant materials of Oryza sativa, Commelina diffusa, Sorghum vulgare, Vigna unguiculata, Pennisetum typohides and Pistia stratiotes to test the effect of biofertilizer on early growth of maize. The undigested plant materials of the same sources were used as control for comparison. 3 kg of sand was mixed with 500 g of each of the plant materials (digested and undigested) to serve as sowing medium. The same contents were put in labeled plastic containers for growing maize. The potting mixtures were watered thoroughly before sowing. Data were collected on weekly intervals for 42 days and subjected to simple descriptive statistics to compare the mean values of maize growth parameters. These include stem height, number of leaves, stem girth and root length. The results indicated highest stem height of 80.3 cm in sowing medium containing digested sorghum against 65.5 cm stem height recorded with the control at 6 WAP. The same treatment had the highest number of 7 leaves per plant at 6 WAP as against 6 leaves in the control. Stem girth ranges from 1 cm in rice treated medium at 1 WAP to 9.7 cm in sorghum treated medium at 6 WAP over and above 0.5 cm to 8.9 cm in the control treatments at 6 WAP. The highest root length of 19.8 cm was obtained in sorghum treated medium against 15.5 cm root length in the control at 6 WAP. Sorghum treated medium yielded the best results in terms of stem height, number of leaves, stem girth size and root length and is therefore recommended for use as bio-fertilizer in maize production.