Analysis Of soil quality using visual soil assessment on some selected sugarcane cropping systems in Lokoja, Nigeria

On-field semi-quantitative soil health assessment is required for greater sustainable production of food.Visual Soil Assessment was employed to assess soil health status under selected management practices of sugarcane.The study purposively selected croplands of sole sugarcane and adjacent mixed cropping of sugarcane and spinach on a floodplain area between Felele and Sarkin Noma geographical location of Lokoja.Three samples were collected at an interval of 12m along a longitudinal transect in each field for the assessment of soil and plant quality indicators.Variables were analysed based on visual scores (VS) of 0, 1 and 2; being poor, moderate and good conditions, respectively.The VS for each parameter was ranked based on weighting factors as containe VSA guide.The sum of the mean VS rankings were subjected to Mann compare the soil and plant indicators between the two cropping systems.For soil indicators, only soil structure revealed significant difference (U = 0.000); and f indicators only crop emergence, crop height at maturity and crop yields showed significant difference (U=0.000) between the cropping systems.Therefore, mixed cropping of sugarcane and spinach had better soil structure, crop height at maturity and crop yield.Thus, the findings demonstrated that farmers on sole could adopt the mixed cropping system of sugarcane and spinach or other N The farmers may also embrace reduced tillage and increased crop spacing, applica proper fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides among others.