Abstract

Liquid Cattle manure (LCM) has long been recognized to be very important organic fertilizer. This paper reports the effectiveness of different levels of LCM on the yield of maize (Zea mays L.), and soil properties. The study was carried out at Luannan Science and Technology Backyard (LSTB), Hebei province, China in the year 2020. The experiment was conducted in pot and has seven treatments with 10 replications: CK(without any fertilizer), CF(5.3gN,1.7gP and 1.82gK pot-1), T1(5.12gN, 0.21gP, 26.8gK and 20gNa pot-1), T2(2.56gN pot-1, 0.1gP, 13.4gK and 10gNa pot-1), T3(1.7g pot-1, 0.07gP, 8.9gK and 6.7g Na pot-1), T4(1.25g pot-1, 0.05gP, 6.56gK and 5.07gNa pot-1) and T5(1.02gN, 0.042gP, 5.36gK and 4.02g Na pot-1). Soil samples were analyzed for soil pH, SOM, TN, available phosphorus and available Potassium content. All soil parameters significantly increased except soil pH. Number of kernels, number of rows ear-1, and number of kernels row-1, weight of 100 kernels, stover, and kernel yield were significantly affected by application of LCM. CF scored maximum values for all these parameters followed by T1. The highest rate of LCM application (13.5L pot-1) improved maize yield by 53.7% and the lowest rate (2.7L pot-1) improved maize yield by 37% over the control. The treatments generally showed significantly higher nutrient uptake than CK.

Keywords: Application; Liquid cattle manure; Maize (Zea mays L.); Growth; Yield