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ABSTRACT
The experiment was conducted in Department of Crop Science Laboratory, Faculty of Agriculture; University of Benin, Benin city. The study investigated the influence of watering regime, soil media and soil incubation duration on the growth of Amaranth. This involved using serial dilution process to isolate, identify and determine the microbial population of the experimental soil. The experiment was laid out in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with three replications and were separated using Student-Newman-Keul test. The results of this experiment showed the presence of seven fungal isolates (Trichoderma sp., Aspergillus niger, Penicillium sp., Mucor mucedo, Saccharomyces cerevisae, Cladosporium sp., and Neurospora sp) and three bacterial isolates (Escherichia coli, Bacillus sp., and Staphylococcus aureus) in soil cultivated with Amaranth under different watering regimes. It was observed that the varying watering regimes showed different degrees of microbial population and diversity, with the highest occurring (95.52 x 105 cfu/g) for fungi when watering occurred every four days, while the highest colony-forming units (201.60 x 105cfu/g) for bacteria when watering occurred once every 3 days. Soil amended with cow dung exhibited the highest colony-forming units for bacteria (222.50 x 105 cfu/g), while untreated topsoil had the highest colony-forming units for fungi (97.50 x 105 cfu/g). From the results obtained, the effect of the interaction between soil treatment, watering regimes and soil incubation period was highly significant on the microbial diversity. On the basis of the findings in this study, it is recommended that untreated soil and soil treated with cow dung coupled with watering once in two days or four days should be used to ensure adequate microbe community that will enhance the growth of Amaranthus cruentus.
