Analysis Of Moringa Oleifera

Moringa oleifera is a deciduous tree species. it is fast-growing, small in size but can grow attaining a height of 10 – 12m. The crown are usually spreading and open with dropping fragile branches, the leaves are tripinnate in nature with feathery foliage and thick, corky, whitish bark (Parrotta,1993). It is an important tree species that is highly valued for it medicinal and nutritional ability (Anwar, et al., 2007). Soil has different characteristics such as texture and structure, these characteristics exert a great influence on the suitability of the soil as a medium for plant growth, it determine the water and mineral storage, aeration and resistance to root penetration (Kramer and Boyer, 1995). The relative proportions of sand, silt and
Sand soil has a textural class that makes it well drained and aerated providing a favourable medium for root growth, however, it has low nutrients and poor water holding capacity, clay soil has high water holding capacity, it is less aerated compared to sand but it has higher nutrients. Loam soil has better water holding capacity and nutrients compared to sand but less water holding capacity compared to clay (Kramer and Boyer, 1995). Compositions of soil play an important role in the germination mechanism of seeds of various plant species (Gulshan and Dasti, 2012). This is could be attributed to role soil particles plays in determining soil temperature, water holding capacity, organic matter etc which affect germination processes. In germination studies of most forest tree emphasis are placed on final germination alone unlike in agricultural crops. Final germination percentage alone does not really reflect speed or pattern of germination (Al-mudaris, 1998) where as germination speed (index) also helps in determining seedling
Follow up test carried using Duncan multiple range test indicate that Clay loam has the highest germination means (96) and differ from loamy sand and sandy while sandy and Loamy sand have 85 and 80 germination mean respectively and did not differ from each other significantly. This implies that the use of soil textural class influenced the rate of germination in M oleifera, this concurred with the findings of Gulshan and Dasti (2012) which shows a positive increase in germination from clay loam texture soil characteristics to sandy loam texture soil characteristics. This could be attributed to difference in conditions such as temperature, moisture, aeration (oxygen) in different soil textural class. Adequate moisture is required for germination and seedling growths (Singh and Singh, 1992). When subjected to favourable temperature and moisture seeds of many forest tree will germinate (FAO, 1985). This may be the reason why Clay loam performed better than sandy and loamy sand because clay loam has more moisture content because of its ability to hold water. Furthermore clay loam is expected to have higher temperature because of it colour, moisture content and organic matter. For examples the transmittance of light in various soil textural class was reported to be affected by particle size, moisture content, particle colour