ABSTRACT

 An incubation study was conducted at Michael Okpara University of Agricu1tur, Umudike Soil Science Laboratory from April to June 2013 to assess the effect of biochar, ash and lime on available phosphorus in soils derived from four parent materials Southeast Nigeria. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of ash, lime and biochar on available phosphorus of soils derived from sandstone, shale, coastal plain sand and alluvium in Southeastern Nigeria. The treatments used were control (no amendment), hydrated lime (L),Ash (A), Biochar (B) .and combination of Lime + Poultry manure (L+Pm), Ash + Poultry manure (A+Pm), Biochar + Poultry manure (B+Pm) and treatments applied at 2 tonnes per hectare with its equivalent of 1 .74gram. They were applied to 1 00gram of soil in a container and replicated three times in a completely randomized design (CRD). The effect of the treatments on the available phosphorus of soils was measured and all data subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA), while the difference between the treatments were tested using the Genstat package. The following physical and chemical parameters were determined using the standard laboratory procedure; particle size analysis and available phosphorus. The results obtained showed that all the treatments increased the available phosphorus over the control. For coastal plain sand, the application of biochar + poultry manure increased the available phosphorus at 2, 4, 6,8,10 and 12 weeks with values of 46.22, 48.29, 47.67, 47.87, 47.00 mg/kg respectively. The application of biochar at 2 weeks of incubation significantly (p