Performance of Poultry Litter Compost on Physiochemical Properties of Soil and Yield of Mature Tea

Abstract

To evaluate the performance of poultry litter compost on the physiochemical properties of soil and yield of mature tea an experiment was carried out at the Bangladesh Tea Research Institute (BTRI) farm from January 2022 to December 2022. The effect of compost on the tea garden soil properties was also determined. This compost was applied at different rates (1.5, 3.0, 4.5 and 6.0 ton/ha) with 100% of the BTRI recommended fertilizer doses. Compost was applied in two splits in a year about 15 days before of inorganic fertilizer application. The yield of tea was recorded at seven days intervals during the harvesting season. Soil samples were collected before starting of the experiment as well as after completion of the experiment and analyzed accordingly. The highest yield (2354 kg made tea/ha) was recorded in the treatment T6 where 6.0 ton/ha poultry litter compost and 100% of BTRI recommended chemical fertilizer were applied. The increase of yield was 24.75% over the control which was statistically significant (p < 0.05). Though T6 gave a significantly higher yield the highest marginal rate of return (18.83%) was obtained from the treatment T4 where 3.0 ton/ha compost was applied along with 100% of BTRI recommended chemical fertilizer, which is the most economically acceptable doses of this fertilizer. The changes of the nutritional status of tea soil was statistically insignificant due to the application of compost.