Pinto41.docx

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.