Abstract

Tropical soils are inherently deficient in plant nutrients and self-inoculate mycorrhiza for legume production. An experiment was, therefore, carried out to evaluate supplementary effects of two common sources of organic fertilizer (oil palm bunch ash (OPBA) and poultry manure (PM)) on the growth and yield performance of newly introduced mungbean. The experiment was conducted at the Teaching and Research Farm of the Department of Crop Science, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria during the 2016 and 2017 cropping seasons. The study was a 3 × 3 factorial laid out in randomized complete block design with three replications. Treatments included three levels of OPBA (0, 4 and 10 t/ha), and three levels of PM (0, 5 and 10 t/ha). The results obtained showed that the highest agronomic parameters as well as yield attributing characters and yield were obtained when 10 t/ha OPBA or 10 t/ha of PM were applied. Each of the levels of applications significantly decreased the number of days to 50% flowering. The highest seed yield of 0.77 t/ha in 2016 and 0.82 t/ha in 2017 were obtained with the applications of 5 t/ha OPBA+10 t/ha PM and 10 t/ha OPBA+10 t/ha PM, respectively. OPBA or PM may be used alone or in combination to give the same yield increase in mungbean.