Response of two cultivars of cucumber to compost and NPK fertilizers on two soils of southwestern Nigeria

This study investigated growth and fruit yield of ‘Marketmore’ (MM) and ‘Poinsett’ (PS) cucumber cultivars grown on Eutric Luvisol (EL) and Plinthic Luvisol (PL) amended with 0, 30, 60 kg N ha^-1 and 0,5, 10, 20 t ha^-1 compost and their combinations at the National Horticultural Research Institute, Ibadan. Data taken included: number of leaves (NL), vine length (VL), vine diameter (VD), leaf area (LA), fruit length (FL), fruit weight (FW), fruit diameter (FG) and number of fruits (NF). These were analysed using split-split plot design in which cultivar, NPK levels and compost were main, sub and sub-sub plot, respectively, using ANOVA at P=0.05. Compost contained N (5 mg g^-1), P (15.9 mg g^-1) and K (7.6 cmol kg^-1), while PL and EL contained N (0.05 and 0.05 mg g^-1), P (1.22 and 0.73 mg g^-1) and K (0.58 and 0.74 cmol kg^-1), respectively. Aplication of 30 kg N ha^-1 NPK on EL gave FW (266 g) and NF (2.25) in MM than PS, (FW, 66.7g; NF, 0.5), EL treated with 5 t ha^-1 compost enhanced FW (150 g) and NF (2.9) in MM better than PS, (FW, 128.3 g; NF, 0.92). Application of 30 kg N
ha^-1 NPK + 5 t ha^-1 compost on EL produced FW (232 g) in MM, whereas 60 kg N ha^-1 NPK + 5 t ha^-1 compost on PL gave FW (154 g) in MM. This indicates that cucumber yield is influenced by cultivar and native soil fertility and a blanket recommendation is inappropriate.