Comparative effect on application of crustacean foliar and commercial fertilizer on maize (zea mays) growth performance

Fertilizer usage were commonly practiced among farmers in order to grow their agricultural crops. However, there were abundance usage of commercial fertilizer that give impacts to plants. In this study, crustacean foliar and commercial fertilizer were used to compare their effectiveness on maize growth performance. Materials used for crustacean foliar preparation were mostly from agricultural wastes such as shrimp wastes including head, tail, shells, and pumpkin fruits waste such as peels, with an addition of molasses. This crustacean foliar was fermented for two months prior for application. A total of 30 Maize plants were divided into two groups which represented as control that used commercial fertilizer, and as treatment that used crustacean foliar. The application of these fertilizers were done twice a week through spraying on stomata of leaf respectively. Growth performance of maize plants were recorded based on plant height, number of leaf, wide and length of leaf twice a week for two months of planting period. The findings showed commercial fertilizer gave better plant growth performance compared to crustacean foliar treatment where towards the end of planting period, control plants had reached 34.01 ± 5.01 cm height while plants applied with crustacean foliar only reached 18.00 ± 4.77 cm height. In addition, statistically the data showed significance difference (p<0.05) between both groups. In conclusion, the commercial fertilizer had better efficiency than crustacean foliar towards growth performance of Maize plants. Further improvement need to be done to improve the quality of crustacean foliar which were lacking of major nutrients in order to produce an alternative organic fertilizer.