A PhD thesis dubbed “Analysis and Application of Soil and Plant Chemical Concentration in Hevea Brasiliensis Nutrition,” has been defended in the University of Buea, UB.

The thesis, defended by Jetro Nkengafac Njukeng, took place at the Faculty of Science boardroom of UB under a four-man jury comprising Prof. Bernard Yerima from the University of Dschang, Prof. Andrew Egbe, Prof. Aaron Tening and Prof. Emmanuel Suh, who chaired the panel, all of UB.

The thesis, supervised by Prof. George Nkeng, focused on improving Hevea Brasiliensis nutrients management and came out with valuable findings applicable to nutrient management in our local environment. According to Njukeng, these findings are going to help the agro-industries in the sense that, unlike relying and working on foreign-designed standards, the local findings will now give more meaningful results and improve yield.

With greater attention to rubber, one of the main cash crops in Cameroon, it was asserted that yields from the rubber plantations are reducing as a result of age, poor soil fertilisers, low mechanisation and insufficient technical know-how by those who often manage them, reason why this study was done to propose possible solutions.

“She had to look at the project to be able to define norms on the type of nutrients that we have for rubber plantations so, she analysed the leaves and soils from our plantation to be able to understand what type of norms could be proposed for the nutritional values of the plantations in case we have to use fertilizer” said Prof. Nkeng. This, he added, is because the norms that exist now are from other countries and can not be used because, the climatic and soil conditions are not the same.

This explains why work had to be done in this area in order to have norms specific to our own environment so that, it becomes possible for us to know what types and quantities of fertilisers to use which will eventually result in increased yields of our rubber plantations. In other words, Njukeng has proposed that, fertilisers should be applied taken into consideration the soil type and old rubber be constantly replaced. This will increase yields.

The research, which was multidisciplinary, though majorly Applied Chemistry, studied a wide range of plantations all over the national territory: CDC, SOFACAM and small holders. The thesis defence, that lasted for about five hours, saw Jetro Nkengafac Njukeng, joining the rank of PhDs.