Effects of growing media on growth performance of <i>Irvingia wombulu</i> seedlings

Abstract

The study evaluated the effect of different growing media on the seedling growth performance of Irvingia wombulu to examine the  potential growing media of amended soil with rice husk. The treatment combinations were topsoil + rice husk (1:1), topsoil +rice husk  (2:1), topsoil + rice husk (3:1), rice husk (1), and topsoil (control). The experiment was laid out in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD)  with 4 replicates. Data were subjected to analysis of variance, least significant difference (LSD) test was used to compare means at 0.05  level of significance. The results showed that topsoil + Husk (1:1) = 1.83 cm2 while Husk = 1.69 cm2 in terms of leave area at week 9  implying that topsoil + Husk (1:1) treatment had the highest total area of leaves while the Husk treatment had the least. Also, in week 6,  the results indicated that topsoil + Husk (1:1), topsoil + Husk (3:1), and topsoil all had 100% survival rates, whereas topsoil + Husk (2:1)  and Husk had survival rates of 97% and 81%, respectively. The media effect was significantly different on two parameters (height = 0.001, survival rate = 0.0001, p≤0.05) while there was no significant difference in the media effect on the other two parameters (leaf area = 0.09,  leaf number = 0.09, p≤0.05). The study concluded that seedling growth of Irvingia wombolu is significantly influenced by soil media and  that topsoil + husk (1:1) recorded better growth performance, which is therefore recommended for raising Irwingia wombulu species in  the nursery establishment.