The Physico-Chemical Properties Of Inland Valley Soil Treated With Compost Of Oyster Shell, Goat Droppings And Poultry Droppings

ABSTRACT

 An experiment was conducted in the Soil Science Laboratory of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike to investigate the effect of oyster shell, composted organic amendment on physicochemical properties of inland valley soil The experiment was 3x3x3 factorial in completely randomized design and soil samples were collected from 0-30cm depth from inland valley soil. The treatment applied were a mixture of goat dropping poultry dropping and oyster shell (GD+PD+OY), poultry dropping and oyster shell (PD+OY) and goat dropping and oyster shell (GD+OY) The amendment were applied at the rate of 0%, 10% and 20% respectively. Each treatment was replicated 3 times. The results show that application of organic materials such as poultry manure, goat manure and oyster shell into the soil, resulted in improvements on the physical and chemical properties of the soil, such as soil pH, CEC, available phosphorus, total nitrogen percent organic carbon, exchangeable acidity, aggregate stability of the soil structure. The results also showed that there were increases in these properties as the rate of amendment and sampling duration were increased. A combination of GD+PD+OY had more influence on total nitrogen, CEC, available P while combination of PD+OY was more effective in aggregate stability exchangeable calcium and pH of the soil.