Maize Growth and Yield Components as Influenced by Different Sources of Organic Fertilizers

A trial was conducted on field between May – September, 2010 in two agroecologies of South West, Nigeria to determine the effect of different organic based fertilizer source on growth and yield components of different maize varieties. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design in split plots arrangement replicated four times. The maize varieties served as the main plot (Obatampa, DMRL-SR-Y, SUWAN SR -1 and ART-98-SW1)) and the organic fertilizer as the sub plot. The organic fertilizer used were poultry manure at 5t ha-1 + urea (100 kg ha-1), Oyo organic (5t ha-1) + urea (100 kg ha-1), cow dung (5t ha-1) + urea (100 kg ha-1) and no fertilizer application served as the control. Result showed that growth and yield components were significantly affected by treatments. ART-98-SW1maize variety performed better in terms of growth and yield parameters which made it the most desirable variety among the varieties used across the two locations. Yield obtained revealed that poultry manure + urea produced the highest grain yield of 4.91 and 5.04 tha-1, followed by cow dung +urea and Oyo organic + urea while the unfertilized control plant had the lowest average yield of 2.67 and 2.98 tha-1 at Ilora and Ibadan location respectively. Higher maize yield was obtained from Ibadan compared to Ilora, this may probably due to difference in climatic conditions at these locations.