| dc.description.abstract | Maintaining healthy soil is critical to ensuring healthy crops and high yields. However, most soils
in Kenya are depleted of core nutrients due to poor farming practices. To improve soil health, there
is need to add organic matter to the soil. While chemical fertilizers are designed to provide an
immediate boost of nutrients needed by crops, organic fertilizers work by releasing their nutrients
to the crops at a slower rate thus very economical in the long-run. Spinach is a vegetable, whose
market is always guaranteed locally, and it fetches better prices than similar vegetables such as
kale. However, many farmers avoid it after the first trial due to challenges associated with the crop.
The overall objective of this study was to determine the suitability of Evergrow® organic fertilizer
on growth and yield of spinach in Embu County in an ISFM system. The experiment was carried
out at University of Embu demonstration farm from January to April, 2018.It was laid out in a
Randomized Complete Block Design with five treatments replicated three times. The treatments
were designated as follows: i) T1 – 200Kg/ha DAP fertilizer (control); ii) T2 - 200Kg/ha DAP
Fertilizer + 750Kg/ha Evergrow; iii) T3 - 200Kg/ha DAP Fertilizer + 1000Kg/ha Evergrow; iv)
T4 - 200Kg/ha DAP Fertilizer + 1250Kg/ha Evergrow; v) T5 - 1250Kg/ha Evergrow alone.
Evergrow organic fertilizer and DAP was incorporated and thoroughly mixed with the soil at the
time of planting. Data collection on growth and yield parameters commenced one month after
planting and was taken weekly until the termination of the experiment. The parameters measured
included plant height, number of marketable leaves per plant, leaf area and final fresh weight at
the termination of the project. The data was collected from five tagged plants selected randomly
from the middle rows of each plot. The data collected was subjected to analysis of variance
(ANOVA) to test for significant difference between treatments. Means was separated using
Student’s Newman-Keuls (SNK) at 95% level of confidence. This study was useful to smallholder
farmers in the adoption of Evergrow organic fertilizer combined with of 200kg/ha DAP to improve
and maintain soil fertility which in turn increase spinach production. | en_US |
