Dear Aleksandra,

Thanks for posting the link, looks useful input to determine a starting point for urine application rates.
Though as discussed before; just looking at N requirements for crops will not tell the whole story and you should encourage farmers to do some experimentation to see what is the best practice for their situation (also economically).

Good luck in Ghana

Marijn

Dear all,

thank you again for your posts. I found a good source of information regarding nutrient application for different countries. For Ghana, it is indicated for districts and crops. Here is the link: www.fao.org/ag/agp/ipnis/index.asp (Integrated Plant Nutrition Information System).

Regards,

Aleksandra

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Hi Aleksandra,
I only found reference to an old recommendation (1974) of the soil research institute Soil Research Institute: NPK 60-30-30 kg/ha. But as stated before, this depends on several factors and has maybe changed.

If you need more precision, I guess best would be to contact the SRI. You could also try to contact the IFDC they have an office in Ghana.

Greetings, Jos

Hi, I am Bismark Yeboah, a Ghanaian MSc student at the University of Bonn, Germany. I am studying on the programme Agricultural Science and Resource Management in the tropics and subtropics (ARTS).

Contributing to the issue, I would want to say that as already mentioned, it is important to consider the soil properties of the location through a soil chemical analysis to determine the soil nutrient content. This obviously is different for different for different locations in Ghana. Maize though can be produced almost everywhere in ghana, main production is centred around the middle belt because of the physical and chemical properties of the soils in those areas.
So depending on the area in which you are working, information on the nutrient requirements can be obtained from the district agricultural office or agricultural extension agents (AEAs). You can as well contact some learned farmers and I am sure you can get the information you need. Then you can do your calculations with it.

Cheers

Bismark

Dear Aleksandra,

just another idea came to my mind - as until now nobody could really help you. Did you contact and ask once Jörn Germer from the University of Hohenheim?
He is a agriculturist and did some urine fertilisation trials within a research project at Valley View University. He and his colleagues should be able ot help you further.

Here a link to his profile:
www.uni-hohenheim.de/1597.html?typo3state=persons&lsfid=2813
And here the homepage of the project in Ghana (probably you know it):
www.uni-hohenheim.de/respta/vvu.php

I hope that helps.
Yours, Martina.

Dear Colleague,

I viewed your posting concerning Nutrient requirement plant in Ghana, and i have found a communities located in IMO state of Nigeria, Eastern Nigeria, their land/soil are naturally great, and its grows maize even without fertilizer.

And i am sure if they have access provided with Fertilizer, they will do exceedingly great in their maize plants. If you wish to know more about these communities write back to me at; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Best Regards,
Paul.
www.uahdp.yolasite.com

Dear Rob and Marijn,

thank you for your posts. I do have the information on the average nutrient content in Ghanaian urine. I will try and get the information on locally available fertilizer recommendations.

Thank you all for your comments!

Regards,

Aleksandra

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Note by moderators: This post was made by a former user with the login name brzoskwinka who is no longer a member of this discussion forum.

Dear Aleksandra,

Even if you can find exact fertiliser recommendations, it is hard to equate that to a urine requirement, if you don't have a good value for the Nitrogen content of your urine. To do that you will have to test a number of samples, until you are satisfied that the average NN4-N value is statistically reliable.

Even with both a nitrogen requirement recommendation and a nitrogen content for you urine it is not always straight forward to calculate the optimum amounts. For instance it could be that you have relatively large fields for a given amount of urine. In that case doubling the amount of urine per square meter to get 10% extra yield increase may not make sense.

And as some people have mentioned above the soil condition, especially the cation exchange capacity and the related organic matter content have a large impact.

If you can not find any solid data, my suggestion would be to use about 4 liters per square meter per cropping season for corn as a maximum or if you have large fields 2 liter per square meter per cropping season as a minimum.

You could consider doing some field trials to compare different quantities (2,3 and 4 liter) In the guidelines Robert Gensch mentions above there is an introduction to how to do a field trial.

Regards

Marijn Zandee

Dear Aleksandra,

Usually there are existing and locally available fertilizer recommendations for commonly planted crops. Maybe you can get them from your Department/Ministry of Agriculture or from any of the maize producing farmers in the region that are using synthetic fertilizers. They should have these information at hand. Based on these recommendations you could then find out the corresponding amount of nutrients.

Do you already have information on the average nutrient content in Ghanaian urine, since the nutrient content very much depends on the respective local diet.

We did a study in the Philippines (PH) a while ago trying to find out the average N,P,K content in PH urine and used existing fertilizer recommendations for some commonly planted PH crops to calculate the corresponding amount of urine needed (based on the N demand of the plants) and tested it for eggplat, petchay, corn. We finally came up with a local PH guide book on the use of urine in crop production with detailed application recommendations that you might find useful:

www.sswm.info/sites/default/files/refere...he%20Philippines.pdf

Hope this helps and best regards

rob#

Hi,

the publication for Zimbabwe gives more information and recommendation. But please keep in mind that the need of fertiliser depends on the local conditions, such as quality of top soils etc. and not only on the need of the plants.
www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0395e/a0395e0a.htm#bm10.1.1

There are experts on agriculture in this forum, probably they give you a better advise.

Cheers,
Philipp

Dear Philipp,

thank you for your post. I already saw this publication. What is mentioned there is the fertilization rate of maize and the response in terms of yield. However, they do not specify what the nutritional requirements of maize plants exactly are. Do you know of any other sources?

Regards,

Aleksandra

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Note by moderators: This post was made by a former user with the login name brzoskwinka who is no longer a member of this discussion forum.

Dear Aleksandra,

the website of the FAO is providing very useful information crop production, use of fertilzer, etc.

The publication "Fertilizer use by crop in Ghana" should give you all needed information regarding your question: www.fao.org/docrep/008/a0013e/a0013e00.htm#Contents

I hope this helps.

Cheers,
Philipp