Abstract
A two year study was carried out in two locations in south eastern Nigeria in the years 2008 and 2009, to determine the effect of planting space on plant population at harvest, and corm yield in cocoyam cultivars. This was aimed to identify optimum planting space for optimum cocoyam production. Five taro cultivars; Nkpong, Ugwuta, Nworoko, Odogolo and Nadu were used. Three planting space; 50 x 100 cm, 40 x 100 cm and 30 x 100 cm were tested. The result showed that decreasing planting space from 50 x 100 cm to 40 x 100 cm resulted to increase in plant population at harvest. There was a decline in plant population as planting space was further decreased to 30 x 100 cm. The closest planting space of 30 x 100 cm produced the highest tuber yield ha-1 among the three planting space in the two locations. The result also showed that the Ugwuta cultivar produced the highest tuber yield among the five cultivars in the Nsukka location while the Odogolo cultivar recorded highest tuber yield in the Umudike location. It was therefore recommended that planting at the spacing of 30 x 100 cm should be adopted as a production practice in these areas for high tuber yield in cocoyam. Key words: Cocoyam, cultivars, planting space, population, tuber yield.
Highlights
Cocoyam is the common name for two tuber cropsColocasia esculenta and Xanthosomona sagitifolum.Cocoyam is an important crop grown for its starchy corms and is a staple food throughout the rural subtropical and tropical regions of the world especially in the Pacific and Caribbean islands and West Africa (Hancock, 2004).Together with yam and cassava, cocoyam forms the major source of carbohydrates in Nigeria
The result of the effect of planting space on plant population at harvest shown in Figure 1 indicated significant effect (P=0.05)
Decrease in planting space from 50 x 100 cm to 40 x 100 cm caused a significant increase in plant population at harvest
Summary
Cocoyam is the common name for two tuber cropsColocasia esculenta and Xanthosomona sagitifolum.Cocoyam is an important crop grown for its starchy corms and is a staple food throughout the rural subtropical and tropical regions of the world especially in the Pacific and Caribbean islands and West Africa (Hancock, 2004).Together with yam and cassava, cocoyam forms the major source of carbohydrates in Nigeria. Cocoyam is the common name for two tuber crops. Cocoyam is an important crop grown for its starchy corms and is a staple food throughout the rural subtropical and tropical regions of the world especially in the Pacific and Caribbean islands and West Africa (Hancock, 2004). Together with yam and cassava, cocoyam forms the major source of carbohydrates in Nigeria. Cocoyam cultivation in Nigeria is concentrated in southwestern and southeastern parts of the country due to favourable ecological conditions in these areas (Shiyam et al., 2007). Like production of other crops, is still carried out by poor rural farmers with low production technologies. These resource poor farmers account for over 90% of Nigeria’s agricultural output through the use of the indigenous farming practices
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