Effect of planting space on plant population at harvest and tuber yield in taro (Colocasia esculenta L).

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.

Response of Thirteen Tannia Accessions to Variations in Planting Date in the Humid Tropics

“…Similarly, studies by Lu et al (2001) on taro, Khan et al (2003) on some potato (Solanum tuberosum) cultivars and Scheffer et al (2005) on Japanese taro indicated that there was a strong and positive association between weight of corms and tubers on water availability and temperature, which was directly related to planting date. The variation in yield and yield attributes seen among accessions in the present work corroborates the findings of Ogbonna et al (2015) in their studies on Nigerian taro.…”

Practical aspects of grass forage seed production and quality with particular reference to planting row spacing and nitrogen fertilization in tropical regions: A review

“…This also related to the overall issue of plant density and therefore seeding rate and seed placement. Optimum planting depends on its effect on seed yield and quality in many crops (Ogbonna et al, 2015;da Silva et al, 2016;Abu and Odo, 2017;Ngozi and Chidera 2017). Row planting has an advantage particularly with tussock grasses, such as Panicum, Andropogon, Pennisetum and Setaria species and seed production of Cenchrus spp.…”

Effect of Fertilizer Application and Plant Density on Physiological Aspect and Yield of Taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott var. Antiquorum)

“…However, it did not occur on taro plants in this experiment. It seems that at higher plant density taro experienced self-sucker (Ogbonna et al, 2015), so that plant population is not increase with increasing plant density.…”

“…Liou (1984) observed that increasing plant population from 26,600-83,300 plants haG 1 increased corm yield from 17-56 t haG 1 . However, to minimize plant competition, improving plant population should be followed by plant arrangement (Ogbonna et al, 2015). With plant spacing of: 50×100, 40×100 and 30×100 cm, Ogbonna et al (2015) found that increasing plant population from 20,000 plants haG 1 (plant spacing of 50×100 cm) to 25,000 plants haG 1 (plant spacing of 40×100 cm) resulted an increase in plant population at harvest but there was a decline in plant population for further decreased in plant spacing (30×100 cm).…”