ABSTRACT

An incubation study was carried out at the laboratory of the Department of Soil Science and Meteorology, Michael Okpam University of Agriculture, Umudike to investigate the effect of soil amendments on the exchangeable acidity of soils derived from four parent materials which include; Shale from Bende, Sandstone from Abiriba, Coastal plain sand from Eastern farm Umudike and Alluvium from Owerenta all in Abia State, Southeast Nigeria. The treatments were Biochar prepared from pyrolysis, Hydrated lime and Ash, Biochar + Poultry manure, Ash + Poultry. manure and Lime + Poultry manure. All the treatments were applied at the rate of 2liha with its equivalent of 1.43g. The treatments were randomly assigned to 1 00g of soil weighed out on a 500g container each and was replicated three times arranged in a Completely Ranomized Design (CRD) These containers were duplicated into six places to cover the twelve weeks of incubation. Samples were collected at 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12weeks to analyze for exchangeable acidity using the standard laboratory procedure. The result obtained shoWed that at 4weeks of incubation, lime + poultry manure significantly reduced the soil exchangeable acidity of soil formed from Shale to 1.07cmo1/kg when compared with the control which was 2.59cmo1/kg. Also lime + poultry manure significantly (reduced the soil exchangeable acidity to 1 .22cmo1/kg for soil of the coastal plain sand. The results obtained shoved that generally, the application of lime + poultry manure significantly reduced the soil exchangeable acidity in soils derived from four parent materials. Further work is recommended for both laboratory and field trials.