Effect of palm bunch ash treatment on remediation and growth performance of Zea mays in crude oil polluted soil

The effect of polluted hydrocarbon (PHC) soil altering the fertility of the soil for effective plant growth yield is a major concern. This study examines the use of oil palm bunch ash as biostimulation technique for bioremediation of PHC soils. Under strict compliance of oil treatment of 10g, 20g, 30g, 40g, 50g, and 60g with oil palm bunch ash on soil samples of 2kg weighed surface soil of 0-20cm polluted and non-polluted sites were collected randomly into perforated planting bags. Various results of residual and cumulative effect on treated soil of oil palm bunch ash enhances the improvement of Zea mays growth performance at 7WAP (7 weeks after planting) after eight months post-treated soils. The residual result shows that optimum treatment favoured 40g/2kg soil with plant emergence ( 41.67% ), plant height ( 22.77cm) and dry matter ( 0.7235g ), while cumulative treatment revealed 30g/2kg treatment as optimum with plant emergence ( 91.67% ), plant height ( 24.40 cm) and dry matter ( 0.8202g ). No doubt, this study of treating PHC soil with oil palm bunch ash at the above mentioned treatment levels improved soil performance for plant growth by reducing the hydrophobic nature of soils which resulted to improvement in the availability of water, oxygen and mineralization of soils. Key words: Biostimulation, Bioremediation, Residual, Cumulative, Plant Performance.

Economic Damage Due to Thryonomys Swinderianus and Atherurus Africanus in Rivers State

The damage done to farm crops by Thryonomys swinderianus and Atherurus africanus in four Local Government Areas of Rivers State; Khana, Gokana, Tai and Eleme was investigated in this research. Structured questionnaire was used to extract information from 100 farmers. Farms were broadly categorized into two for analysis. With an estimation guide list, estimate was made for each raided crop on a farm, an entire farm and all farms. The raided crops include cassava, cocoyam, threeleaf yam, maize, sugar cane, melon, tomato, banana, pineapple and pumpkin. No farm was attacked by A. africanus alone but 54% of farms were attacked by T. swinderianus alone and 46% by both animals. The estimated damage to farms attacked by T. swinderianus alone was 332750 naira but 468050 naira for farms attacked by both animals with T. swinderianus accounting for 54.26% of the damage and A. africanus accounting for 45.74%. The cumulative damage to all farms was 800800 naira; T. swinderianus accounting for 73.26% of the damage and A. africanus accounted for 26.74%. For all farms, percentage damage to raided crops are; cassava 46.5%, cane sugar 10.75%, maize 10.26% , pumpkin 9.22%, cocoyam 7.54%, melon 7.31%, threeleaf yam 4.74%, pineapple 1.95%, banana 0.96% and tomato 0.85%. For cassava, pumpkin, cocoyam, maize, melon and cane sugar, damage due to T. swinderianus was higher than that due to A. africanus with an average ratio of 2.7:1; for melon, it was 39:1. Statistically however the cumulative damage due to T. swinderianus and that due to A. africanus is not significant. Of the farms investigated, 23% experienced mild damage, 41% experienced moderate damage while 39% experienced severe damage. Average damage was 8008 naira while 0.19 hectares was the average farm size; so farmers lose 8008 naira each year to these “vertebrate agricultural pest” for every 0.19 hectares of farm. Keywords: Farms; Raided crops; Estimated damage; Level of damage; Vertebrate agricultural pest. DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/9-8-07 Publication date: April 30th 201