Growth response of oil palm seedungs at pre-nursery stage in an oxisol amended with oil palm mill by-products

• Main Author: Elsie Aucia Bong
• Format: Academic Exercise
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: S Agriculture (General)
• Online Access: https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/18590/1/Growth%20response%20of%20pre%20nursery%20oil%20palm%20seedungs%20in%20an%20ultisol%20amended%20with%20oil%20palm%20mill.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/18590/

This study was carried out to evaluate the growth response of Elaeis guineensis seedlings in a tropical soil (Oxisol) amended with dried decanter cake, dried palm oil mill effluent (POME), and empty fruit bunch (EFB) biochar. In this experiment, a randomised complete block design (RCBD) was used and the duration was three months. The four treatments used were: (i) soil only (T1), (ii) soil and 10% dried decanter cake (T2), (iii) soil and 10% dried palm oil mill effluent (D), and (iv) soil and 10% EFB biochar (T4). Each treatment was replicated six times. At the end of this experiment, plant height, plant diameter, shoot fresh weight, root fresh weight, root and shoot dry weight, soil total nitrogen, soil available phosphorus, soil cation exchange capacity (CEC), soil total organic carbon and organic matter, plant total nitrogen, and plant total phosphorus were measured. All the data collected were analysed using one-way analysiS of variance (ANOVA) at 5% significance level. T4 resulted in the highest root dry weight of 0.54 g, followed by T1 (0.45 g), T2 (0.44 g), and D (0.35 g). For shoot dry weight, T4 also resulted in the highest weight of 1.44 g, followed by T2 (1.28 g), D (1.25 g), and T1 (1.21 g). However, plant total N was significantly higher for Tl with a value of 2.40%, compared to D (2.39%), T2 (2.40%) and T4 (0.90%). For plant P, T4 was Significantly highest with a value of 13.33 mg kg-1, and the soil total nitrogen was Significantly highest for T4 (0.51%) as well. The soil available P was significantly highest for T4 with a value of 4.46 mg kg-1 and in soil CEC, T4 had 79.80% more CEC than Tl. However, for total organic carbon and organic matter content, T1 was significantly higher with a value of 50.77%, compared to T4 (50.54%), D (50.04%), and T2 (49.03%). The results indicate that EFB biochar was better at improving the soil chemical properties. However, the oil palm seedlings showed better growth response to soil amended with dried POME. A longer term study is needed to observe the real potential of these soil amendments due to their slow effects and response from plants.