The research was undertaken to study the effect of application of different rate of organic fertilizers on broccoli. There were five treatments in total consisting of inorganic, organic fertilizers and blank control. The organic treatment included compost applied with three different rates of chicken manure tea (CMT) i.e. (0 ml/week, 100 ml/week and 200 ml/week) and the remaining two treatments were inorganic fertilizer treatment and blank control. The vegetative parameters measured were stem diameter, leaf number, leaf diameter, plant weight and height. In all the vegetative parameters measured, the inorganic fertilizer treatment gave the highest mean value which was statistically significantly different from other treatments except for leaf diameter which was statistically similar to CMT 200 ml and compost treatment. The result showed that the head yield of inorganic fertilizer was statistically highly significant over organic treatments, but there was no significant difference between inorganic fertilizers and 200ml CMT/week and compost treatments. The highest yield was obtained from inorganic fertilizer with the yield of 12.12 t/ha and the least from control with yield of 9.29 t/ha respectively. The positive dose-response pattern of the CMT applications suggests that there is good potential to further optimise this soil amendment. Also, an economic analysis of the costs and benefits of the high performing organic treatments would be valuable.

Keywords: chicken manure tea; yield; broccoli; organic; inorganic.