English

M Maunde S,Mahmud M,Tanimu B

doi:10.5897/ajest12.102

Abstract

The study was conducted to determine the inter-relationship between grain yield of Bambara groundnut and its various yield characters at Samaru (11°11’N, 07°38’E, 686 m above sea level) in the Northern Guinea Savanna of Nigeria, using simple correlation and path coefficient analyses. The result reveals strong positive correlation between number of pods/plants (r = 0.74**), 100-grain weight (r= 0.35**) and harvest index (r = 0.83**) with seed yield. Harvest index made the highest direct percent contribution to seed yield (39.872%) followed by number of pods/plant which contributed 12.809%. The largest combined percent contribution to seed yield were obtained through number of pods/plant and harvest index (13.677%). Although 100-grain weight had significant positive correlation with grain yield (r = 0.35**), its direct independent contribution to grain yield was found to be very low (0.778%) due to high component compensation and unfavourable weather conditions while the correlation and direct contributions of number of seeds and shelling percentage to grain yield were weak and small, respectively. Therefore, the most important yield determinants of bambara groundnut which should be exploited through a breeding programme for improving its yield potentials, were number of pods/plant, and harvest index. Key words: Correlation, path coefficient, yield characters and percent contributions.

Highlights

Yield characters of crops such as number of flowers per plant, number of seeds/pod, seed size, spikelet number/spike,100-seed weight, fruit weight/plant among others have been found to be associated with the final yield of crops
These relationships tend to give an insight into the importance and possibility of exploiting these characters to improve the yield potentials of crops through the use of certain agronomic practices and breeding programmes
Several researchers have, identified important yield characters which influence the final yields of many crops

Summary

Introduction

Yield characters of crops such as number of flowers per plant, number of seeds/pod, seed size, spikelet number/spike,100-seed weight, fruit weight/plant among others have been found to be associated with the final yield of crops. These relationships tend to give an insight into the importance and possibility of exploiting these characters to improve the yield potentials of crops through the use of certain agronomic practices and breeding programmes. In this regards, several researchers have, identified important yield characters which influence the final yields of many crops. In Irish potato, tuber yield/hill, tuber fresh weight and number of tubers/plant influenced the final yield of the crop (Babaji, 2004)

Methods

Results

Conclusion