Bioremediation: Assessment of Growth Attributes of Maize (ZEA MAYS) on Crude oil-Polluted Soils

Environmental pollution has posed a major threat to terrestrial, aquatic, and marine ecosystems, thereby affecting microflora and micro-fauna populations. This study assessed the growth attributes of maize plants on crude oil-polluted soils amended with agro-wastes. Six kilograms each of composite soil sample was weighed and transferred into one hundred and fifty labeled plastic buckets with drainage holes for soil aeration and spiked with 300mls each of crude oil, allowing for 14 days of soil acclimatization. Soil amendments such as groundnut husks, cassava peels, empty fruit bunch of oil palm, and maize cob powder were applied and allowed for 90 days. Maize seeds were sowed, while periodic data were collected and subjected to a three-way ANOVA. The result obtained revealed that maize seeds grown on agro-wastes treated and pristine control soils show early seed germination than the crude oil-polluted control soil. The plant height obtained for GnH14P + MaC14P at 10% was the highest with a mean (of 152.81cm2), and the leaf area of the maize from soil treated with GnH14P + EFBOP14P at 10% had the highest mean (756cm2), the leaf length of maize from soil treated with GnH14P + CasP14P at 3%, 6%, and 10% was the highest with mean ranging (54-97 cm2) with no significant difference in mean values obtained. The stem girth, number of leaves, and leaf width were generally improved in the bio-remediated soils. The result for the yield performance of maize shows that the days to flowering were shortened in the bio-remediated soil compared to the prolonged flowering days observed in the crude-oil polluted control. The number of seeds per cob was high in the bio-remediated soils while no seed was obtained in the crude-oil-polluted control soils. It can be concluded that the ameliorated treatment with the agro-wastes improves the performance of maize plants in crude oil-polluted soils.