Chicken manure is natural, locally available and relatively cheap material that the organic vegetable
growers can obtain. Inorganic fertilizers are relatively expensive and can potentially contaminate the
environment. Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) is one of the widely used salad vegetable crops in Swaziland. This
experiment was carried out in a lath house at Luyengo Campus, Horticulture Farm, University of Swaziland to
assess the effects of varied levels of chicken manure on growth, yield and quality of lettuce. The cultivar used
was ‘Taina’. The levels of chicken manure used were 60, 40 and 20 t/ha. A control of inorganic fertilizer 2:3:2
(22) + 0.5% Zn was used at a rate of 955 kg/ha basal dressing and limestone ammonium nitrate (LAN 28%) at
a rate of 100 kg/ha as side dressing. The results showed that chicken manure levels significantly (P < 0.05)
affected growth, yield and nutritional quality of lettuce. A trend of superiority of the different level of chicken
manure application was observed as lettuce provided with 60 t/ha exhibited higher values in number of leaves,
plant height, marketable yield and mean leaf dry mass. The second best results were obtained from plants
supplied with 40 t/ha followed by plants previously fertilized with 20 t/ha and the lowest from those provided
with inorganic fertilizer. However, there was no significant (P > 0.5) difference in iron content on fresh mass
basis for all treatments. Results of this experiment showed that inorganic fertilizer was less suitable in lettuce
production. Lettuce may be grown using 60 ton/ha chicken manure for a more productive enterprise.