Effects of soil amendments on aggregate stability and selected agronomic parameters of pepper (Capsicum annuum)

Abstract

Soil amendment had been used to ameliorate soils for better productivities with improved aggregate stability, thus, a research was conducted to determine the effects of poultry manure, portland cement and combined poultry manure plus portland cement amended soil on time (s), kinetic energy (J m-2 hr-1) of simulated rainfall to disintegrate soil aggregate and selected agronomic parameters (number of leaves, plant height, leaf area, number of roots, stem girth, root girth, and root length) of pepper (Capsicum annuum) in the Greenhouse; Teaching and Research Farm of The Oke-Ogun Polytechnic, Saki, Oyo State, Nigeria, in a complete randomized design. The treatments were four and replicated three times. Results indicated that, all treatments had increased significant (P ≤ 0.05) effects on the aggregate stability, also both poultry manure and combined poultry manure plus portland cement had significant (P ≤ 0.05) improvements on all the seven agronomic parameters, while portland cement only had significant (P ≤ 0.05) increment on five agronomic parameters and no significant (P = 0.05) effects was observed on stem girth and root length. Poultry manure, portland cement and combined poultry manure plus Portland cement had pronounced distinct statistical significant (P ≤ 0.05) improvement on the three, four and five selected agronomic parameters respectively, however, based on the strength of analysis of variance, cost and LSD, combined poultry manure plus Portland cement at 10:10 gm could be recommended for the improvements of soil aggregate stability and growth of pepper (Capsicum annuum) in a derived savannah with sandy soil.