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Fluted pumpkin (Telfairia occidentalis) has high agronomic and food relevance in the tropics. Production of this vegetable in the dry season with irrigation is increasingly popular and is mostly on droughty soils, thus requiring research on appropriate combination of soil moisture conservation/management practices. This study evaluated the interactions among seedbed configuration (flat and raised), surface mulching (grass‐mulched and no‐mulch) and plant spacing (1002, 502 and 252 cm2, designated wide, intermediate and close spacing, respectively) on fluted pumpkin performance in a sandy‐loam soil in southeastern Nigeria during 2014/2015 dry season. Seedling emergence (ratio of emerged to expected seedlings) was highest and lowest in flat/mulched/wide and flat/no‐mulch/close combinations, respectively. Main effects showed higher seedling emergence in mulched (67.9%) than no‐mulch plots (53.1%) and in wide (70.8%) and intermediate spacing (64.6%) compared to close spacing (46.0%). Fresh leaf yield assessed biweekly during 6–14 weeks after sowing was generally highest and lowest in flat/mulched/close and flat/no‐mulch/wide combinations, respectively. Seedbed configuration had no distinct effect on leaf yield; hence, flat/mulched/close option was similar to raised/mulched/close option. Yields from mulched/wide and no‐mulch/close options were similar with a mean (2735 kg/ha) approximating the overall mean (2868 kg/ha). Flat/mulched/close combination is the best management practice to grow fluted pumpkin with irrigation on droughty soils during the dry season of the tropics. Where this best practice is compromised due to mulch or seed scarcity, the ensuing no‐mulch/close and mulched/wide, respectively can support dry‐season production of pumpkin in droughty tropical soils at average levels.

Twelve genotypes of rice collected from the National Cereals Research Institute (NCRI), Badeggi, Bida, Niger State, Nigeria were evaluated to estimate the magnitude of genetic variability and relationship of some agronomic traits of rice and their contributions to yield. The results obtained showed a significant difference (p ≤ 0.05) among the genotypes in all the traits studied. Genotype 'WAB 35-1-FX2' produced a significantly higher grain yield of 3.40 t/ha compared with all the other genotypes in the two years combined. Genotypes 'WAB 33-25', 'WAB 56-1-FX2', 'WAB 56-39', 'WAB 56-125', 'ITA 150' and 'FAROX 16 (LC)' were the most stable grain yielding genotypes across the two years of the experiment. High broad sense heritability (h 2 bs ) was associated with grain yield (h 2 bs = 98.63%), number of spikelets/panicle (98.78%), plant height (98.34%) for the first year planting, whereas in the second year planting, days to 50% flowering (96.72%), days to maturity (94.14%) and grain yield (83.33%) were among the traits that showed high broad sense heritability. The two years combined correlation analysis showed that grain yield correlated significantly and positively with number of spikelets/panicle (r = 0.2358*), number of panicles/m 2 (r = 0.1895*), number of fertile spikelets/panicle (r = 0.1672*) and 1,000 grain weight (r = 0.1247*), indicating that these traits can be phenotypic basis for improving grain yield of rice. Conversely, grain yield exhibited negative correlation with days to 50% flowering (-0.3009) and days to maturity (-0.2650), though not significant. This suggests that rice grain yield can be improved by selecting early flowering and maturing genotypes especially under heat and drought prone conditions.

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