PINTO, Hasmaye Marie M.

AGRI 11-S Scientific Paper Analysis

Philippine Agricultural Scientist

Vol. 92 No. 3 315-319
September 2009

Growth Performance of Jathropa curcas L. Seedlings and Some Properties of Acidic, Low

Fertility Grassland Soill Amended with Biowaste Compost

by Virginia C. Cuevas

Summary: The study aimed to observed the effects of various levels of biowaste on selected

properties of red, low fertility, acidic grassland soil and the growth performance of Jathropa

curcas L. seedlings. Using a pot experiment for the study, results showed that growth

improvement was proportional to the amount of biowaste compost added to the soil. It was

noted that the soil physical and chemical properties was optimum at 16% added compost and

that any further increase resulted to no improvement of the soil properties tested. The results

showed that the use of biowaste to improve productivity of grassland areas is highly

recommended.

Applications: Grasslands areas in the Philippines occupy 12.8 milllion hectares of the country’s

total land area. It is associated with soils that are red acidic, with very low organic matter

content and low soil fertility that only selective plants grow. The research proves that biowaste

compost can be used to improve the productivity of this grassland soil. If properly composted,

biowaste with C:N ratio 15 and below could be a resource that municipalities with grassland

areas can utilized and with this, the productivity of grassland when they were still covered by

tropical rainforest could be achieve again.