Effect of oil spillage on the productivity of pepper (capsicum spp)

A field study was conducted to investigate the effects of crude oil pollution on the growth and yield of Capsicum annuum and Capsicum frutescens during the rainy and dry seasons. The study was carried out in the botanical garden of Biological Sciences Department, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, on soils that were collected from Ologbo, Benin City. There were three crude oil polluted soils (control, medium and highly impacted) and two Capsicum species (C. annuum and C. frutescens) giving six constituted treatments (C. annuum in Control (CA), C. annuum in Medium polluted soil (MA), C. annuum in Heavily polluted soil (HA), C. frutescens in Control (CF), C. frutescens in Medium polluted soil (MF) and C. frutescens in Heavily polluted soil (HF). The soil was a well drained sandy-loam (74 % sand, 16 % silt and 10 % clay), pH (6.50), high potassium (1.33), phosphorus (96.25) and organic carbon (1.62) but low in nitrogen (0.30). Results showed that the growth was poor in the polluted soils (p<0.05) using parameters such as plant height, leaf area, leaf number, chlorophyll content, plant fresh weight and dry weight which were taken at an interval of one week respectively.