Abstract
The objective of this study was to determine a suitable plot size for field experiments with papaya genotypes. Two experiments were carried out using a randomized complete block design with 11 and 12 papaya genotypes, respectively. In both experiments, plots consisted of one row, with 10 plants each. Spacing between rows was 3.5 m, with 1.5 m between plants. The characteristic evaluated was fruit production in t ha-1 in first year of cultivation, and the basic unit used was one plant. Suitable plot size was estimated using Lin and Binns, and Hatheway’s methods. These methods are complementary and should be used together in the determination of the optimum plot size. The results of these tests showed that the optimum plot size for the evaluation of yield in papaya was four plants by plot with four replications each assuming 30% of the precision for establishing differences among the means of two genotypes. Key words: Breeding, Carica papaya, intrablock correlation.
Highlights
Papaya is one of the main tropical fruits produced in the world
There was a significant difference between the means for the assayed genotypes with productivity of the first trial of 79 and of 66 t ha-1 in the second experiment, always for the first year of cultivation
There was a significant difference between the means by the Scott-Knott grouping test in two experiments (Table 3)
Summary
Papaya is one of the main tropical fruits produced in the world. World papaya production reached 12.6 million tonnes in 2014, with India, Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria and Mexico as its main producers (FAO, 2014).Field experimentation with papaya has been carried out quite frequently in order to implement new technologies for the crop (Cortes et al, 2017; Santos et al, 2017) and to evaluate plant productivity (Oliveira et al, 2014; Dantas et al, 2015; Luz et al, 2015) and disease resistance (Poltronieri et al, 2017) of new genotypes. This variable number suggests the convenience in carrying out a sound investigation to establish optimum plot size for papaya field experiments. This method is commonly used in conjunction with Hatheway’s method to determine optimum plot size in experiments involving the evaluation of genotypes as has been assayed in bean (Storck et al, 2007) and soybean (Storck et al, 2009)
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