Early stage of plants is the major determinant of its growth and yield. This is directly linked to the nature of soil, nutrient availability and climatic conditions the plants were exposed to at its early stage. The experiment was conducted at the screen house of the Department of Forestry and Wildlife, Faculty of Agriculture, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, Anambra State from February to August 2018. The study evaluated the growth response of Dennettia tripetala to different organic manure. Four treatments were used for the experiment and were replicated four times with four seedlings per replicate. The treatments were: T1 (Control; Top soil only), T2 (Mineralized cow dung), T3 (Mineralized pig dung) and T4 (Mineralized fish pond sediment). The experiment was laid in Completely Randomized Design. Parameters assessed includes: Seedling height (cm), Collar diameter (cm) and Number of leaves. Watering was done daily. Results showed that T4 had the best performance in seedling height, and number of leaves with a mean value of 8.966071cm and 3.01 respectively while T3 had the best performance in collar diameter with mean value of 0.226473cm. The least performance was recorded in T2 in number of leaves with mean value of 2.81 while T1 had the least performance in height with mean value of 8.366964cm. However, there were significant differences among the treatments at 5% level of probability in number of leaves and height and Duncan Multiple Range Test was used to separate significant means but collar diameter was not significant. Hence, Dennettia tripetala seedlings thrives excellently in fish pond sediments and should be adopted as the best media for the early establishment of the seedlings to increase its early growth and development.
Keywords: Early Growth, Organic Manure, dennettia tripetala, growth parameters., potting mixture, seedling
