You have no items in your shopping cart.
ABSTRACT
The study was carried out to investigate Calcium availability in soils of an oil palm plantation invaded with different weeds in Ekasa Village, Ovia North East Local Govt area of Edo State, Nigeria. Soil samples were collected at two different depths (0-15cm and 15-30cm) with three replicates each, at four different weed invaded areas covering at least one acre each. The weeds investigated are; Spear grass (Imperata cylindrica), Guinea grass (Panicum maximum), White weed (Ageratum conyzoides), and Siam weed(Chromolaena odorata). The results showed that the soil of the plantation is Loamy sand which is moderately acidic (Mean pH value is 4.67). The portions with guinea grass and Siam weedhave high organic carbon content at 0-15cm (23.01g/kg and 23.61g/kg respectively) but moderate organic carbon content at 15-30cm (15.23g/kg and 18.22g/kg respectively) while the portions with White weed and Spear grass have moderate organic carbon contents at both depths (15.49g/kg, 18.42g/kg, and 10.91g/kg, 14.76g/kg respectively). The Organic carbon content in the Siam weed portion is the highest (23.61g/kg) followed by the portion with Guinea grass (23.01g/kg) at 0-15 cm depth while the portion with White weed is the lowest (15.49g/kg). The 15-30cm depths also followed the same trend. There is a significant difference between the mean value of Calcium content of the portion with white weed (0.01528g/kg) and Siam weed (0.0154g/kg). There were no significant differences among siam weed and guinea grass nitrogen values at 0-15cm. Also, there were no significant differences among White weed , Spear grass, Siam weed and Guinea grass calcium values at 0-15cm.. The results also showed that the portion with Siam weed had the highest reserve of Organic carbon and nutrients reserve followed by Guinea grass while White weed has the lowest.
