ABSTRACT

An incubation study was carried out at the Soil Science and Meteorology Laboratory of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike to determine the exchangeable calcium in soils derived from coastal plain sand, sandstone, shale, and alluvium of four parent materials. The objective of this work was to determine the effect of ash, lime and biochar on exchangeable calcium of soils derived from four different parent materials. The treatment comprised of control (no amendment), Biochar (B) at 2tlha, lime (L) at 2t/ha Ash (A) at 2t/ha, Biochar + Poultry (B+P) at it/ha, Ash + Poultry (A+P) at it/ha, Lime + Poultry (L+P) at it/ha. The treatments were assigned to 100 gram of soil weighed out for the incubation study and were replicated three times in a completely randomized design. During the 12 weeks of incubation, the effects of treatments on exchangeable calcium was measured, and all data subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA), while the differences between the treatments were tested using GENSTAT package. The result obtained showed that soils from shale had the highest significant (p value of 36.7cmo1/kg of exchangeable calcium over the soils from other parent materials tested. At 4, 6, 8, and 10 weeks of incubation, soils from coastal plain had significant (higher exchangeable calcium of 36 .70cmo1/kg, 29.3 ocmollkg, 27.00cml/kg, and26.30cmo1/kg respectively. At 12 weeks of incubation, the interaction of lime + poultry manure significantly (increased the exchangeable calcium. At week 4 of incubation, the interaction of biochar + poultry manure in the soil formed from alluvium significantly increase the exchangeable calcium over the other treatment tested. The result showed the potential of biochar to increase exchangeable calcium. Further work on field application of the treatment on crops is recommended.