the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 20 Mar 2025
Effect of trachyte and basalt powder on the growth and yield of maize (Zea Mays L.) in the Sudano-Sahelian zone of Cameroon (Central Africa)
Abstract. The Sudano-Sahelian zone of Cameroon, characterized by a low annual rainfall, faces challenges in soil fertility preservation due to agricultural intensification and unsustainable practices. This study aims to evaluate the effect of trachyte and basalt powders inputs on soil and maize yield in Guiring experimental farm. Fieldwork involved collecting and describing samples of trachyte, basalt, and soil and setting up the experimental design. In the laboratory, the ground rock samples underwent geochemical analysis, and the soil samples were analysed for their mineralogical and physicochemical properties. The experiment followed a completely randomized block design with three repetitions and six treatments (T0, T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5). The soil consists of kaolinite, smectite, sepiolite, and quartz. Its texture is dominated by sand fraction, with a neutral pH (6.98). The organic matter (1.30 to 3.17 %) and total nitrogen contents (0.11 to 0.13 %) are relatively low. The concentrations of potassium, magnesium, sodium, and calcium vary from 0.10 to 0.40 cmolc kg-1, 0.72 to 5.44 cmolc kg-1, 0.13 to 0.56 cmolc kg-1, and 2.64 to 6 cmolc kg-1, respectively. The cation exchange capacity is moderate to high, ranging from 18.70 to 25 cmolc kg-1, while the available phosphorus content is high, ranging from 12.60 to 30.30 mg kg-1. The studied soils are moderately suitable for maize cultivation. Fertilization trials showed a significant improvement in maize growth and yield, within plots treated with basalt powder yielding higher (2558.64 kg ha-1 and 2931.16 kg ha-1) than those treated with trachyte powder (2362.87 kg ha-1and 2763.91 kg ha-1) and the control plots (645.83 kg ha-1). Plots treated with NPK fertilizer recorded the highest yield (3164.45 kg ha-1). Although the treatment with conventional fertiliser resulted in a relative higher yield, the advantage of using rock powders lies in their environmental benefits, long-term effectiveness, and more affordable cost.
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-930', Joseph Tamale, 18 Apr 2025
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Dear Topical Editor,
I have reviewed the manuscript by Sidsi et al. entitled: “Effect of trachyte and basalt powder on the growth and yield of maize in the Sudano-Sahelian zone of Cameroon (Central Africa)” with keen interest. However, the findings presented by the authors fit an agronomy journal better than a soils journal. Notwithstanding, the manuscript in its current state has numerous flaws that would need substantial revision before the authors consider sending it to an appropriate journal. On this basis, I recommend rejection of the manuscript.
Specific comments
Title: The title should be adapted to reflect the effect of applied rock powders on soil fertility as well because a bulk of the findings is focused on soil mineralogical and physicochemical properties.
Abstract
LN 18–19, you indicate that the study followed a completely randomized block design. What was your blocking factor? Additionally, LN 18–19 could be rewritten as: “The experiment followed a completely randomized block design with six treatments (T0, T1, T2, T3, T4, and T5) and three replications.” What does T0–T5 mean in terms of application rates of N, P, and K?
LN 19–20, I find it interesting that your soil consisted of kaolinite, sepiolite, quartz, and smectites, but the sand fraction dominates its texture, and the pH is close to neutral (6.98). Could you include the soil classification of your profiles as per the latest WRB guidelines in the text? Additionally, why report OC and ON instead of total C and N? For all the findings, please report mean values with the standard error of the mean instead of ranges. Please maintain this format throughout the manuscript.
LN 23–25, I find this sentence hanging.
LN 24–26: What growth parameters did you look at, and how different were they between treatments? Please add them here.
LN 24–26: At what rate of trachyte and basalt additions did you attain the highest increase in maize yield?Introduction
With the exception of maize suitability evaluation for the sahel region, nearly all the details required for the introduction are there, but the flow and coherence of ideas are still lacking and could be enhanced by avoiding repetitions of some concepts. Additionally, authors should consider highlighting why specifically trachyte and basalt rock powders? Furthermore, authors need to mention the yield gap in maize and how using soil fertility amendments helped close the yield gap.Materials and methods
Please merge LN 107–109 with 105–106.
The authors could make a better map of the area.
Table 1: Please report two significant figures for rainfall, three significant figures for temperature, and the aridity index.Experimental design
LN 119: A control is also a treatment. In other words, you have six treatments and not five. Could you also mention the blocking factor?
LN 121: T0–T5 needs to be written as T0–T5 (numbers as subscripts) to maintain consistency.
LN 123: Is CMS-9015 an open-pollinated variety or a hybrid? Please clarify.
What are the quantities of N, P, and K (kg N or P or K/ha) supplied through the addition of the trachyte and basalt powders and urea fertilizers? This is more important than stating the bulk amounts of the rock powders and urea fertilizers added per square meter. I would write out Table 2 as text.
I would use a graphics program to produce Figure 2.
How were weeds managed, and what was the frequency of weeding during the experiment?Rock sampling and analysis
LN 130: Give coordinates where the rock samples were collected from.
LN 134–135: This sentence is hanging.
LN 138: Specify the country where the University of Maroua is located.
LN 144–145: First write out all the elements in full before using acronyms.
LN 145–146: Give the country where Osaka City University is located.
LN 145: Give the manufacturer and country of the manufacturer for the Rigaku RIX2100, and the same for ICP-MS.
LN 147–148: Write out the acronyms for the acids in full.
LN 151–152: Write out the acronyms in full.
Figure 3 could go to the appendices.
LN 159–160: Please specify the guidelines you used to describe the soil profile.
LN 163–164: Is this to suggest that your profile had six horizons? If not, add details about the sampling depth and also the total depth of the soil profiles. What was the slope at the site?
LN 167: First write out all the exchangeable bases in full before using acronyms.
LN 173: V is an inappropriate acronym for base saturation.
LN 174: What does SEB stand for?
LN 188: Please give the country where the weather station is located, and coordinates as well.
LN 190: Give a reference for the formula of the climatic index.
LN 195: Please first contextualize the land quality index in the introduction before using it in later sections of the manuscript.
LN 202–204: Needs revisiting. The phrasing is vague.
LN 204: Maize plants can grow up to 2–4 meters. I am just wondering if a tape measure would be the best tool to measure maize height.
How did you deal with the influence of edge effects on the mean value of response variables of interest? How were weeds managed, and what was the frequency of weeding?Data analysis
Did all the data follow a normal distribution? How about variance between treatment groups? What did you do in case of non-normal distribution of the data and heteroscedasticity? How did you analyze time series data from repeated measurements, especially the growth parameters? I also missed details on how you handled temporal pseudo-replication in the repeated measurements, because this compromises the predictive capacity of statistical tests for repeated measurements. What level of statistical significance did you use?Results
LN 224: Please check the grammar.
LN 225–226: Could you refer to a table or figure with these results? Otherwise, sounds like literature from another study presented as your findings. Same for LN 228. Specify where we can find this result (table or fig): “Olivine, present in some samples, is often altered to iddingsite.” No reference to your results as well, LN 230–231.
LN 236–251: Rather than giving the ranges of the different geochemical constituents and the major and trace elements in the two rocks, I would compare how these mean constituents differed between the two rock types. Please present mean values of the respective constituents of basalt (n = 3) and trachyte (n = 3), and whether or not the mean values of the constituents differ between basalt and trachyte rocks. Please state p-values when you notice significant differences.Morphological and mineralogical characteristics of the soil
LN 258–259: Should go to materials and methods.
LN 260: Please provide an actual photo of your soil profile.
Figure 5 could also go in the appendix.
LN 263–264: Did you mean diffuse boundaries? The progressive soil boundary description is quite unclear.
Table 4 could also go in the appendix.
Figure 6 is of low quality. Please save your X-ray diffractograms as high-resolution images.Physicochemical characteristics of the soil
LN 282–284: This line is unnecessary, please delete.
Table 5: I would calculate these statistics per horizon and not the entire profile. Please delete these descriptive statistics from the table. Also, it would have carried a lot of weight if you had described and sampled at least three soil profiles down to at least 1.25 m at your site.Suitability of the studied soils for maize cultivation
Besides this part not being fully contextualized in the introduction, I also do not fully get why it matters to do a suitability assessment for just your study location. Wouldn’t it carry more weight if the suitability assessment were for the Sahel region, and you would present a map showing which areas in the Sahel region are highly, moderately, and less suitable for maize cultivation?
Tables 7 and 8 could go to the appendix.Evaluation of the effect of trachyte and basalt powder on the growth and yield of maize
LN 341: Check grammar.
Table 9: Maintain one decimal point for all the reported parameters.
When reporting the results, please re-state what T0–T5 mean.
Please report p-values in brackets where you mention significant differences between treatments.Effect of trachyte and basalt powder on maize yield parameters
Please report p-values in brackets where you mention significant differences between treatments.The discussion is too long!
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-930-RC1 -
RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-930', Eder Martins, 22 Apr 2025
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The article offers a significant contribution to the use of ground volcanic rocks in managing soil fertility for maize production in Cameroon.
I have provided several detailed comments directly within the text annotations.
The experimental design illustrates the enhanced productivity results attributed to the overall characteristics of ground volcanic rocks compared to NPK fertilization. It shows significant differences between the control treatment with no fertilizer applied and the treatments with fertilizers. However, it is not possible to explain the differences between the treatments with ground rocks and the NPK treatment. To clarify this, it would be necessary to include additional reference treatments with separate synthetic fertilizers for each nutrient: N, P, and K. Part of this question was addressed through treatments that added N with the ground rocks, which enhanced the agronomic responses. Another crucial aspect is the evaluation of the residual effect through the study of subsequent plantings without the application of nutrient sources, in order to assess the economic viability of using regional nutrient sources compared to synthetic fertilizers. Future research should involve treatments using mixtures of rocks with different compositions, such as trachyte and basalt, to evaluate their synergistic effects. Additionally, the use of biological sources of nitrogen to replace urea is recommended.
In any case, the article, after the required revisions, presents a relevant contribution to the development of regional solutions for soil fertility management, contrasting with the dependency on synthetic fertilizers produced in the Northern Hemisphere, to which tropical countries are reliant.
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