Cowdung Management, Urea Fertilizer on Soil Properties and Maize Yield : In The Northern Guinea Savanna Of Nigeria

Greenhouse and field studies were conducted at Samaru, Zaria (11o 11" N, 7o 38" E ) in the Northern Guinea Savanna agro ecological zone of Nigeria to evaluate cow dung management options that could best conserve nutrients contained in the cow dung thereby improving its quality before application to the field, the effect of cow dung application to the field on nutrient content and availability to crops in the soil and the individual and combined effects of cow dung and urea fertilizer on soil chemical properties and the yield and yield components of maize. Treatments consisted of first incubating the cow dung material for one month under different management practices in the field and subjecting it to different storage times, from March (12 weeks) to June (0 week) in the various years of experimentation. Cow dung management methods, duration of cow dung storage significantly(P < 0.05) increased some of the soil chemical properties in the greenhouse and field. the application of 45 kg n ha-1 significantly (p < 0.05) gave higher values of yield and yield components of maize in both the greenhouse and field experiments.