Influence of Soil Locations and Watering Regimes on Early Growth of Moringa oleifera Lams
Sale, F.A; Attah, E.S; Yahaya, P

Abstract
A study was carried out at the Green House of Kogi State University, Anyigba to investigate the influence of soil from three different locations and watering regimes on early growth characters of Moringa oliefera in the Southern Guinea Savannah region of Nigeria. This study is aimed at identifying the best soil location as well as watering regime to be used in the propagation of M. oleifera. The experiment was a 2 x 3 factorial experiment in Completely Randomized Design (CRD). Soil were obtained from Kogi State University Animal Production and Research Farm (SL1), Kogi State University Demonstration Farm (SL2) and Kogi State University Faculty of Agriculture (SL3) while the watering regimes were once and twice daily including the control (WR1,WR2 and WR0 ). Thirty six pots were filled as a replicates for each of the treatment and seedlings transplanted for the ten weeks the experiment lasted. The parameters measured were plant height, stem diameter and numbers of leaves. Results obtained from this experiment shows that there were no significant differences found among the three soil locations however, SL1 gave the highest yield for growth characters. Watering regimes was found to be less significant for the vegetative growth of Moringa in general however WR2 gave the best yield for vegetative growth. The analysis of variance shows that soil locations and watering regimes were significant only for stem diameter at 4WAT and number of leaves at 6WAT where SL1 and WR1 gave the best yield for vegetative growth for the two characters (stem diameter and number of leaves).

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