The field experiments were conducted at the Teaching and Research farm, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso in the 2005 and 2006 cropping seasons. The experiments were done to determine the effect of different levels of organo mineral and inorganic fertilizers on the growth, yield, quality and chemical compositions of okra. The treatments consisted of three levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK) fertilizer (0, 150 and 200kg NPK ha-1), and four levels of organo mineral fertilizer (0, 2, 3 and 4 t. ha-1) used solely or in combination. This was a factorial experiment fitted into complete randomized block design with three replications. The data collected were number of leaves, plant height, number of fruits and fruit yield. The leaves and fruits nutritional contents and quality were also assessed.
The results showed that application of organomineral and inorganic fertilizers and their combinations significantly (p £ 0.05) influenced the growth, yield, quality and nutritional contents of okra. Sole application of 150kgNPK ha-1 or 3 t. ha-1 organomineral fertilizer gave the highest growth, yield and quality of okra. However, there was no significant difference in the crop performance under these two fertilizer regimes. The combined application rates of 75kg NPK by 3 t. ha-1 organomineral fertilizer gave the best okra performance compared to other treatments. From the results, combined application of the two fertilizers type will reduce the farmer’s budget for crop fertilization and inclusion of organic fertilizer in the combination will surely ensure production of crop under a less polluted environment.