ARTICLE | OPEN ACCESS Discovery Agriculture 10, e10da1561 (2024) 1 of 9 Comparative effects of poultry droppings and cow dung rates on the growth and yield of sweet pepper (Capsicum annuum) in Wukari, Southern Guinea Savannah Adashu Tanko Gani 1* , Aondoawase Zechariah Richard 1 , Tanko Bako 2 ABSTRACT A field study was conducted at Federal University Wukari Teaching and Research Farm during the 2022 cropping season to investigate the effects of poultry droppings and cow dung on the growth and yield of sweet pepper in Wukari. The randomized complete block design was adopted for the experiment and replicated thrice, on a 3 m × 2 m plot. The treatments consist of different rates of cow dung and poultry droppings of 5 tons/ha, 10 tons/ha and 15 tons/ha, which were compared to the untreated control samples. The growth parameters were measured at 2, 4 and 6 weeks after transplanting while the yield parameters were taken at maturity. Results showed that using both cow dung and poultry droppings significantly increased the growth parameters of sweet pepper compared to the control. At six (6) weeks after transplanting, the highest growth parameters were obtained in the 15 tons/ha poultry droppings treatment with 101.1±1.31 leaves, 33.4±2.20 cm plant height, 2.8±0.15 cm stem girth, 21.3±3.69 secondary branches, 32.8±4.18 flower pods and 20.1±5.32 cm2 leaf area. The yield of sweet pepper also significantly increased using of both poultry droppings and cow dung. The mean number of fruits per plant was highest in the 15 tons/ha poultry droppings treatment (21.9±2.76) and lowest in the control - no treatment (6.7±1.28), the mean yield per plant was highest in the 15 tons/ha poultry droppings treatment (3.32±0.22 kg), and lowest in the control - no treatment (0.78±0.02 kg) and the mean yield per plot was highest in the 15 tons/ha poultry droppings treatment (38.75±2.18 kg) and lowest in the control - no treatment (8.76±1.21 kg). These findings revealed that applying poultry droppings at the rate of 15 tons/ha or more will enhance the growth and yield of sweet pepper significantly and might be viable alternative to chemical fertilizers. Discovery Agriculture To Cite: Gani AT, Richard AZ, Bako T. Comparative effects of poultry droppings and cow dung rates on the growth and yield of sweet pepper (Capsicum annuum) in Wukari, Southern Guinea Savannah. Discovery Agriculture 2024; 10: e10da1561 doi: https://doi.org/10.54905/disssi.v10i21.e10da1561 Author Affiliation: 1 Department of Soil Science and Land Resource Management, Federal University, Wukari, Nigeria 2 Department of Agricultural and Bio-Resources Engineering, Taraba State University, Jalingo, Nigeria * Corresponding Author Department of Soil Science and Land Resource Management, Federal University, Wukari, Nigeria Email: adashutanko@yahoo.com Peer-Review History Received: 09 February 2024 Reviewed & Revised: 13/February/2024 to 13/April/2024 Accepted: 17 April 2024 Published: 21 April 2024 Peer-Review Model External peer-review was done through double-blind method. Discovery Agriculture pISSN 2347-3819; eISSN 2347-386X © The Author(s) 2024. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)., which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. DISCOVERY SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY