A greenhouse pot experiment was conducted to determine the effect of agricultural lime and goat manureon soil acidity and maize growth parameters using soils from Kavutiri-Embu County. Nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers at the rates of 50 and 70 kg ha-1, respectively, and goat manure at three rates (0, 5 and 10 mg ha-1) and agricultural lime (CaCO3) at six rates (0, 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, and 12.5 mg ha-1) were used for the study. The pot experiment was arranged in a complete randomised design and replicated three times. Maize, variety H513as test crop, was grown for a period of 8 weeks. The results were measured on maize crop parameters (plant heights, root lengths and dry matter biomass) and soil parameters (soil pH and exchangeable acidity). All the biophysical data generated were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the difference between the treatments means separated using the Fischer’s least significant difference at 5% probability level. Linear correlation analyses were done using the Microsoft Excel 2010. Results generally showed that soil acidity decreased with increasing levels of manure and lime. The treatment with 12.5 Mg ha-1 of lime and 10 Mg ha-1 of manure had the best reducing effect on soil acidity and better maize yield performances reflected in the highest pH (6.3), highest root length (41.3 cm), plant height (150.3 cm) and dry biomass weight (755.4 kg ha-1) obtained.

 

Key words: Acid soil, agricultural lime, manure, maize productivity andpot experiment.