Effects of poultry droppings and house hold waste on the yield and nutritional quality of tomato fruits (<i>Solanum lycopersicum</i> )

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at the Teaching and Research Farm of the Federal University of Technology Minna, Gidan Kwanu Campus. The experiment was to determine the effects of poultry dropping and house hold waste on the yield and nutritional quality of tomato fruits. The experiment was 2×2 factorial in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD). The treatments which were each replicated thrice consisted of poultry dropping and house hold waste at 5t/ha. There were two varieties of tomato (Roma VF and UC82B). Tomato seedlings were raised in the nursery and transplanted to the experimental site after four weeks and spaced at 50cm×50cm. Poultry droppings and house hold waste were incorporated into the soil two weeks before transplanting. Five plants were randomly selected and tagged for data collection. Data collected include plant height, number of leaves, number of branches, days to 50% flowering, number fruits, fruit girth and fruit weight. Harvested fruits were also subjected to proximate analysis. The result showed that Roma VF recorded the highest plant height, number of leaves, and number of branches, throughout the study period while UC82B recorded the lowest. There were no significant interaction effects on plant height, number of leaves, and number of branches. The result also indicated that the application of poultry dropping resulted in the highest plant height while lowest plant heights were observed where there was no soil amendment (the control). Interaction effects were also observed on number of leaves. Significant interaction effects were also observed on the number of branches at eight weeks after transplanting. The findings from this study showed that poultry dropping can be applied at 5t/ha to Roma VF for quality tomato fruit and high yield.

Key words: poultry dropping, house hold waste, plant height, number of branches, number of fruits