Abstract
Taro (<i>Colocasia esculenta</i> L.) is a herbaceous, monocotyledonous, perennial stem root crop that is widely cultivated in tropical and sub tropical regions of the world. In Ethiopia taro is cultivated in southern, south western and western of part of the country. The title of experiment was evaluation of released taro (<i>Colocasia esculenta</i> L.) varieties at Assosa, Western Ethiopia. The objective was to identify adaptable, high yielding with good quality taro variety for Benishangul Gumuz region. The experiment was carried out in RCBD with three replications at Assosa Agricultural Research Center in 2016/17 cropping season. The crop was planted on a plot size of 5mx3m (15m<sup>2</sup>) with inter and intra raw spacing of 75cm and 50cm, respectively. Data of growth performance, yield and yield components were recorded. Some parameters showed that no significance difference (P>0.05) among varieties in terms of corm diameter, plant height, corm length, number of corm per plant, number of corm per ha, number of cormel per ha, yield of cormel tone per ha whereas leaf number, number of suckers, weight of corm per plant, total number of yield per ha, total yield tone per hectare, corm yield per ha revealed that significance difference among varieties. The highest total yield (16.75 t/ha) per hectare was recorded in Boloso-1 variety while the lowest total yield of taro (8.07 t/ha) per hectare was obtained from Kiyaq variety. Boloso-1 variety was best when compared to others varieties. So, Boloso-1 variety was recommended for Assosa area followed by local variety.
Highlights
IntroductionTaro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott) is a herbaceous, monocotyledonous, perennial stem root crop that is widely cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions of the world
To evaluate the yield and yield components of taro varieties including corm diameter, corm length, plant height, number of suckers, number of corm per plant, weight of corm per plant were recorded from five randomly selected plants of the two middle rows except, number of corm per ha, weight of corm per ha, number of cormel per ha, weight of cormel per ha, total number of corm per ha and total yield of corm data were taken per plot basis as per the procedure [10]
The experiment was conducted in Benishangul Gumuz Regional State, at Asossa Agricultural Research Center (AsARC) in the 2016 main cropping season under rain fed conditions
Summary
Taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott) is a herbaceous, monocotyledonous, perennial stem root crop that is widely cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions of the world It is originated from tropical areas of South and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands [2]. Taro (Colocasia esculenta (L) is a herbaceous, monocotyledonous, perennial stem root crop that is widely cultivated in tropical and sub tropical regions of the world In Ethiopia, it has been cultivated mainly and extensively in dense populated and high rainfall areas of South, Southwest and Western parts of the country It is cultivated because of producing reasonable amounts of yield when other crops hardly grow, resistant to disease and pests, ease of ecological adaptation and utilization of different purposes. Despite of that in Benishangul Gumuz Region there are no released taro varieties
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