Abstract

Khammash Gatsinzi, James Habyarimana and Augustine Gatsinzi

An experiment was conducted at the University of Rwanda, college’s farm located in Northern Rwanda in 2013. The main objective was to determine the effectiveness of farm yard manure on carrot nutritional quality. The experimental design applied was randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replicates for each treatment. The treatments comprised five levels (0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 tha-1 ) of decomposed farm yard manure. The quality parameters namely, ß-carotene, vitamin C and total soluble sugars were analyzed in harvested carrots for each treatment using standard methods. The results showed that farm yard manure had a positive effect on ß-carotene whereby the highest content of 11188 µg/100 g was recorded from the 20 tha-1 treatment, while the lowest content of 10287 µg/100 g was recorded from the carrots that did not receive any farm yard manure. The results on vitamin C showed that its content increased with the application rate of 20 tha-1 recording 7.980 g/100 g, while the lowest content was recorded in plots that did not receive any fertilization. However, FYM did not influence significantly total soluble sugars content in carrots whereby the highest TSS of 10.267% was obtained in plots without FYM, while the lowest TSS of 9.997% was obtained in carrots from the 20 tha-1 treatment. On the basis of the results of this study, a range of 15-20 tha-1 of FYM is therefore recommended because it improved the nutritional quality of carrots.