Abstract

With increasing human population against declining staple food crop yield trend, food insecurity is inevitable. Soil fertility problem has been identified as a major factor hindering maize productivity in Trans Nzoia district. Majority of these soils are acidic, deficient in nitrogen, phosphorus and at times other nutrient elements. A factorial experiment was laid out in randomised complete block design, with fertilizer option being main plot and variety as sub plot to explore better fertilizer treatments for maize production in Trans Nzoia. The treatments included three maize varieties and five fertilizer options. The maize varieties used were H.614D, H.6213, H.9401, while the fertilizer options included control (no fertilizer), farmyard manure (FYM) (one handful per hole), single super phosphate-SSP (188 kg/ha), diammonium phosphate-DAP (188 kg/ha) and DAP 125 kg/ha). There were significant yield differences among fertilizer treatments and among the varieties. DAP at 188 kg/ha and H.6213 gave the best mean yields of 10.19 and 9.62 kg a plot, respectively. SSP at 188 kg/ha and H 614 D treatments resulted in dismal crop yield performance of 8.03 and 8.46 kg a plot, respectively. Up to 23% yield can be lost in the field as rots especially with maize varieties exhibiting open cob tips.

Key words: Trans Nzoia district, maize, variety, yield, diammonium phosphate, farmyard manure, single super phosphate.