Effect of pre-treatments, inorganic fertilizer and varying soil volumes on the early growth performance of baobab (<I>Adansonia digitata</I> (Linn)

Abstract

Adansonia digitata (Linn) Baobab is well known with hard seed coat, endanger by nature and its need for sustainable livelihood is   unavoidable. Therefore, there is a need to determine the best silvicultural methods of handling the species. This study was investigated the pre-treatments, inorganic fertilizer and varying soil volumes on the growth and development of Adansonia digitata seeds and seedlings in a nursery at the Department of Forestry and Wildlife Management, Federal University Dutse, Jigawa State. Seeds were subjected to four pre-sowing seed treatment methods namely: soaked in cold water for 48 hrs, soaking in hot water for 30 mins,  soaking in concentrated Tetraoxosulphate (vi) acid 35 mins, control. The growth parameters considered for assessment were shoot height, leaf area, stem diameter and leaf count. The experiment was a 3x3 factorial experiment laid out in Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with nine treatment combinations for growth experiment with three replications making twenty-seven samples altogether. The results of pre-sowing treatments revealed that there is significant different (p≤ 0.05) across four treatments applied on seeds. Acid treated seeds had the highest performance (95%) followed by the hot water treatment method (40%). 0g of Muriate of Potash + 2kg of topsoil, had the highest performance of leaf count, stem diameter, shoot height, leaf area with the mean values of 29.16, 1.2 mm, 43.5cm and 40.4cm² respectively. The research, therefore recommends soaking of Adansonia digitata seeds for 35  minutes in 20ml of acid for mass production of seedlings while 0g of Muriate of Potash + 2kg of topsoil played pertinent roles in growth performance.

Keywords: Growth performance, Inorganic fertilizer, Pre-sowing treatments, Soil volume, Tetraoxosulphate (vi) acid (H₂SO₄).