Abstract:
Soils of the southern Guinea
savannah zone of Nigeria are low in organic
matter content, inherently infertile due to
intensive weathering and leaching caused by
high temperature and rainfall. A field
experiment was conducted at the Teaching
and Research Farm of the University of
Ilorin, during the 2013 and 2014 cropping
seasons, to determine the effect of neem
seed cake and NPK fertilizer on the
performance of sesame crop (Ex Sudan cv).
Treatments consisted of three levels of NPK
fertilizer 20:10:10, applied at 0, 100 and
200 kg ha-1 and neem seed cake (NSC),
applied at 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 t ha-1. The
experiment was laid out in a 3 x 5 factorial
arrangement replicated thrice. Data were
collected on soil parameters (some physical
and chemical properties), plant growth
parameters (plant height, number of leaves
and leaf area) and yield components
(number of capsules per plant, weight of
seeds per plant and weight of seeds per
hectare). The result of the study indicated
that using the highest level of application of
NPK fertilizer, neem seed cake and their
combinations significantly (p<0.05)
increased the growth of sesame plants, in the
2 years of study. However, the 100 kg ha-1 of
NPK and 3 tha-1 and their combinations
gave the highest yield and yield components
of sesame during the period of study. The
result of the study revealed that using high
levels of NPK, neem seed cake and their
combinations favoured vegetative growth at
the expense of seed formation. Farmers are
therefore encouraged to use organic and
inorganic fertilizer moderately to prevent
excessive vegetative growth of sesame.
