Low soil fertility has been identified to be among the major causes of low pasture quantity and quality. Scarcity of high quality forage mainly during the dry season threatens animal productivity in some areas of South Africa, thus the need for identifying livestock feed alternatives. Pigeon pea is a woody legume that has continually been an important shrub in agroforestry and can provide protein-rich livestock feed during times of shortage. Soil fertility to support the production of pigeon pea can be enhanced by application of fertilisers. Therefore, this study was carried out firstly, to determine the effect of phosphorus fertiliser on the growth performance and biomass production of three pigeon pea varieties, and secondly, to investigate the influence of phosphorus application on the nutrient and anti-nutrient content of three pigeon pea varieties. The field experiment was done at the University of Fort Hare research farm in Alice, South Africa. The factors investigated were three pigeon pea varieties namely Chitedze 1, Chitedze 2 and CIMMYT 1 and three phosphorus fertiliser application rates of 0, 40 and 60 kg P/ha. The study was a 3× 3 factorial experiment set up in a randomised complete block design and was replicated three times. The growth performance attributes evaluated in this study include the number of branches, plant height and root collar diameter. Root collar diameter was not significantly (p>0.05) different among the pigeon pea varieties and phosphorus levels. Likewise, the application of phosphorus was not significant (p>0.05) on plant height and the number of branches of all the varieties. However, when P level was varied, there were significant differences among the varieties, and so were the interaction (p<0.05) between variety and phosphorus on plant height and the number of branches. There was no significant (p>0.05) difference among the phosphorus levels on the fresh leaf yield of Chitedze 1 and Chitedze 2, but phosphorus application at 40 kg P/ha increased the fresh leaf yield of CIMMYT 1. Phosphorus application at 60 kg P/ha increased (p<0.05) the dry matter content of Chitedze 1 and Chitedze 2. Furthermore, the results of the trial show that the application of 40 kg P/ha and 60 kg P/ha increased (p<0.05) the dry matter yield of the varieties CIMMYT 1 and Chitedze 2, respectively. The effects of phosphorus application on the nutrient composition of the three pigeon pea varieties varied. The composition of hemicellulose of all the varieties was significantly (p<0.05) increased by the application of 40 kg P/ha. Conversely, the concentration of crude protein, phosphorus, copper and iron, and the calcium to phosphorus ratio of all the pigeon pea varieties was not significantly (p>0.05) affected by phosphorus application and there was no interactive effect of variety and phosphorus. The proximate compositions of fat, total non-structural carbohydrates, ash, neutral detergent fibre, acid detergent fibre, cellulose, neutral detergent insoluble nitrogen, acid detergent insoluble nitrogen of the pigeon pea varieties varied significantly (p<0.05) at different phosphorus application levels. There was an interactive (p<0.05) effect of variety and the level of phosphorus on the concentration of calcium (Ca), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), sodium, zinc, manganese, and the K/(Ca+Mg) ratio. The digestible dry matter, dry matter intake and the relative feed value were significantly (p<0.05) different among the pigeon pea varieties at varying phosphorus levels. The anti-nutrient composition of Chitedze 2 was not significantly (p>0.05) affected by phosphorus application but the concentration of phenols and saponins of Chitedze 1 was significantly (p<0.05) increased when 60 kg P/ha was applied, but these anti-nutrients were reduced (p<0.05) for CIMMYT 1 at 60 kg P/ha. It can be concluded that phosphorus application influences the biomass production and chemical composition while the optimum phosphorus level vary among the pigeon pea varieties.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufh/vital:29501 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Mpabanga, Nkosi |
| Publisher | University of Fort Hare, Faculty of Science and Agriculture |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MSc |
| Format | 101 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | University of Fort Hare |
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