Fertilizer Field Trial

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to determine the soil nutrients available at SAKA (experimental site) for the growth of pechay vegetable. Soil fertility has a dramatic impact on the profit equation because the lack of fertility limits production. Pechay requires at least some major nutrients for growth and reproduction. A deficiency in any one of those nutrients will reduce yield. Most of those nutrients are obtained from the soil. According to Duke (1978), only light applications of fertilizer are justified, as 450 675 kg/ha of 4124. The primary plant nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) are the most important in Pechay production in terms of amounts required and frequency and magnitude of plant response. Objective of the study To determine the soil nutrients available at SAKA (experimental site) for the growth of pechay vegetable. Materials and Methods Materials: 240 seedlings of pechay vegetable; hoe for tillage and soil manipulation operation; transplanting trays; recording book; urea fertilizer, phosphate fertilizer and complete fertilizer.

Methods: The trial was designed to take advantage of the highly uniform growing conditions during transplanting, the seedlings planted has relatively uniform height and leaf width. The treatments were randomly assigned to the each experimental unit. The experiment was replicated three times.

Experimental unit REPLICATE 1 R1T3 R1T0 R1T1 R1T2

REPLICATE 2 R2T1 R2T2 R2T3 R2T0

REPLICATE 3 R3T2 R3T3 R3T0 R3T1

Treatments T0 Control T1 Urea (46-0-0) T2 diammonium phosphate (16- 45 0) T3 Complete (14-14-14) Replicates R1 Replicate 1 R2 Replicate 2 R3 Replicate 3 COMPOSITION OF FERTILIZER USED Phosphate fertilizer 16- 45 - 0 PICTURES

COMPLETE FERTILIZER 14-14-14

UREA 46-0-0

Potassium fertilizers was not available, very scarce so I made do with (16-46-0)

Results REPLICATE 1 RIT3 R1T0

R1T1

R1T2

REPLICATE 2 R2T1 R2T2

R2T3

R2T0

REPLICATE 3 R3T2 R3T3

R3T0

R3T1

Experimental plot

DISCUSSION COMPARING VERTICALLY THE EFFECTS OF THE TREATMENTS ON THE VEGETABLE ON THE THREE REPLICATION Column 1 R1TI Column 2 R1T2 Column 3 R1T3 Column 4 R1T0

R2T1

R2T2

R2T3

R2T0

R3T1

R3T2

R3T3

R3T0

The high yield response of pechay to phosphate and the comparatively lower yield response to Nitrogen were mainly caused by the fertility status of the soil. Considering column 1 with the addition of Urea as treatment, the deficiency of Phosphorus and potassium can be observed, from the picture at column one, the pechay response has dark green color, Stalks short and thin, new growth is weak and stunted. Phosphorus is important for structure and function of nucleic acids and energy molecules,

so the plant will show poor flowering and fruiting. Leaf tips and edges looked burned and this shows the deficiency of potassium Considering column 2 where the treatment used was diammonium phosphate (1645 0), yellowing at the tip and the edge of the leaves shows the potassium deficiency. Column 3 shows good response and highly good yield. The treatment applied was complete fertilizer (14-14-14). Column 4 is control, no treatment applied. The yield is relatively low, stunted and the plant heights were short compared to others. The result shows that the soil at SAKA has lower amount of required nutrients (NPK) which is required for the growth of pechay vegetable. Higher response and yield were observed using complete fertilizer that supplied all the nutrients (NPK).The yield using phosphate fertilizer (16- 45 0) was also high since relatively amount of Nitrogen and higher percentage of Phosphorus were supplied. For grower who wishes to plant pechay or other vegetable at SAKA, it is recommended that complete fertilizer should be used to obtain optimum high yield.

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