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Alleviation of Soil Acidity by Addition of Compost for Grain Maize Production
Abstract:
Returning organic materials in the form of compost can be an alternative method of alleviating soil acidity. This is because decomposed organic materials help chelate Al, thereby reducing its toxicity to crop. A set of three experiments was conducted in a glasshouse at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). The first experiment was the use of inoculant and activator in composting. This experiment was done to evaluate the effectiveness of different types of inoculants as decomposers. The second experiment was a pot experiment using grain maize variety PJ-58 as a test crop to determine the best compost. The soil type was the Bungor series soil (Typic Paleudult). In the third experiment (also a pot experiment), grain maize was grown on Bungor and Kuantan series soils in order to evaluate the effectiveness of compost as a soil ameliorant.
The results indicated that during composting, the temperature of the compost increased up to >60ºC. This showed that effective microorganisms (EM) are good inoculants to decompose palm oil mill effluent. It was found that compost application alleviated soil acidity. Applying compost at rate 20 t/ha plus 2 t ground magnesium limestone (GML)/ha increased pH from 4.6 to 5.7. The exchangeable K, Ca, and Mg also increased. This treatment gave the best result.
For the Bungor series soil, the critical Ca concentration in the tissue was 0.65 percent while the critical Mg concentration was 0.42 percent. The critical exchangeable Ca concentration was 2.7 cmol/kg soil. The best compost was compost type 2 (CT2) where EM as inoculant while urea and rice branch as activator was applied. Its application to the soil gave the highest exchangeable Ca and Mg, the highest CEC, and the lowest exchangeable Al. It also gave the highest maize dry weight. It was also noted that compost application improved soil fertility leading to increase in grain maize yield.
