Effect of Compost on Some Soil Physical Properties and Yield of Forage Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) in Desert Soil of Northern State of Sudan

Abstract

A field study was conducted for two consecutive winter seasons; 2017/18 and 2018/19, at the Research Farm of the National Institute of Desert Studies, New Hamdab Scheme, Northern State of Sudan. The objective was to study the effect of compost manure (5 and 10 ton ha-1), on fodder sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) yield and some physical properties in the area. The experimental design was randomized complete block design (RCBD) with four replicates. The results showed significant differences (P ≤ 0.05) to due to the application of compost on increasing fodder sorghum yield or biomass, very highly significant differences (P ≤ 0.001) in reducing bulk density and increasing total soil porosity, also result indicated that compost manure has highly significant differences (P≤0.01) in increasing soil moisture content. Application of 10tonne ha-1compost manure produced the highest means values of sorghum
biomass of (44.13 and 53.9 ton ha-1) compare to the control of (20.9 and 25.4 ton ha-1) season one and tworespectively, decrease soil bulk density from (1.7 and 1.8 gcm-3) to (1.40 and 1.44gcm-3), increased total porosity from (47.6 and 45.4) to (34.4 and 31.8) and increase moisture content from (19.0 and 18.7%) to (9.6 and 8.7%) for the controlseason one and two respectively.