Comparing Poultry Manure to Inorganic Fertilizer and Their Combination on the Growth and Yield Performance of Omankwa Maize Variety

Aims: Major effect of soil fertility decline is the observed reduced food production in most African countries, including Ghana. In order to sustain soil and crop productivity, it is necessary to explore alternative soil fertility replenishment strategies, which are effective and affordable to farmers, especially the smallholder farmer.

Study Design: A RCBD in three replications with each block with dimension 4 m × 3 m using spacing of 0.75 m and 0.4 m inter and intra and inter-row.

Place and Duration of Study: The research work was conducted at the CSIR-Crops Research Institute, Kumasi between April 2016 - December 2016 using Omankwa a released maize variety from CSIR-Crops Research Institute, Kumasi, Ghana.

Methodology: There were six treatments per rep and each rep was randomized. Treatments were as follows; control (no fertilizer or poultry manure); T1 (100% Poultry manure two weeks after planting of maize), T2 (100% (N.P.K) two weeks after planting of maize), T3 (25% Poultry manure and 75% NPK fertilizer), T4 (50% Poultry manure and 50% NPK fertilizer) and T5 (75% Poultry manure and 25% NPK fertilizer).

Results: Results from the study showed that Omankwa performed better under treatment T1 better than other treatments T4 and T5 even though T4 and T5 perform better in other parameters measure for the experiment but did not results in grain yield for Omankwa.

Conclusion: The use of poultry manure still remains to be the best source as alternative to soil nutrient used for often better yield of crop production but for lack or availability of poultry manure, the poultry manure con be supplemented with NPK a synthetic fertilizer to obtain optimum grain yield in maize production.