Seasonal and Treatment Effects on Soil pH under Potato Production in Kitale, Kenya: A Randomized Block Analysis with Multiple Comparisons
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.68050/JAMS.2026.710Keywords:
soil pH, potato production, fertilizer treatments, FYM, Calcipril, RCBD, Kitale, Kenya, Tukey HSD, Dunnett testAbstract
Soil pH is important as a measure of the soil chemical condition and will affect the availability of soil nutrients and fertilizer efficiency. This study evaluated the effects of eight fertilizer treatments on soil pH under potato production in Kitale, Trans Nzoia County, Kenya. A Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) experiment was applied, having 5 replications across two production seasons. The treatments consisted of farmers’ practice, Baraka, Baraka + Calcipril, DAP, DAP + Calcipril, Yara, ½ DAP + ½ CAN + FYM, and FYM at 10 t/ha. Overall ANOVA showed significant effects of treatment (????7,60 = 4.919, ???? < 0.001), season (????1,60 = 269.853, ???? < 0.001), replication (????4,60 = 86.481, ???? < 0.001), and treatment × season interaction (????7,60 = 3.224, ???? = 0.0057). In Season 1, treatment effects on post-production soil pH were not significant (????7,28 = 1.961, ???? = 0.097), whereas replication was significant (????4,28 = 36.872, ???? < 0.001). Treatment effects were also significant during Season 2 (F7,28=6.504; ???? < 0.001), with FYM showing significant higher pH than some treatments. The FYM treatment was found to be significantly different from the farmer practice by Dunnett’s test (???? = 0.0051). The results indicated that fertilizer effects on soil pH also depended on production season.
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Articles published in the Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Studies (JAMS) are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), unless otherwise stated. Authors retain copyright of their work and grant JAMS the right of first publication.
