Comparative effects of poultry droppings and N.P.K. 15:15:15 on the growth and density of soil microbes

Abstract

Soil microorganism contributes immensely to the nutrient availability and decomposition of soil organic matter but little or no specific investigation is being carried out on the possible effects of all those nutrients fixing chemicals or substances on the survival and population distribution of various microbes. Due to usefulness of fertilizers whether organic or inorganic manures to increase the soil microorganisms in fastening the growth of plants either in forest produce or agricultural aspect, there is need to inspect the best fertilizer application that best suit the growth of the soil microorganism. This study investigates the comparative effects of poultry droppings and N.P.K 15:15:15 on the growth and population of soil microbes. The land was prepared and marked out with dimension of 1m x 1m and was divided into ten portions which consists four treatments and one control, these were replicated twice. Samples were collected from the land marked out for microbial analysis, so also analysis of the poultry droppings were carried out for microbial analysis. 20 and 30 grams each of the poultry droppings and N.P.K 15:15:15 were applied to the land portion marked out. The experiment was laid on in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) and was left for four weeks, after which soil samples in each portion were collected and subjected to another microbial analysis. The parameters assessed were total bacterial plate, total coliform, and total fungal count. The data collected were subjected to mean, bar chart representation and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results revealed that T₂ (Poultry droppings at 20g) had the highest value of 4.4 while T₄ (N.P.K 15:15:15 at 20g) had the least value of 1.9 for total plate bacterial count. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) for total plate bacterial, total coliform and total fungal count showed that there is significant difference among the treatments at 0.05 level of significance. Therefore T₂ is considered the best to raise soil microbes in the soil being the treatment with the highest bacterial, coliform and fungi count.