Growth and Tuber Yield Improvement of Sweet Potato Cultivars (Ipomoea Batatas L.) as Influenced by Vine Patterns of Planting in Taraba State

Abstract

Field experiments were conducted for two locations in (2021) at the Teaching and Research Farm of the Federal University, Wukari, and Taraba State University Teaching and Research Farm, Jalingo, to determine the growth and tuber yield attribute as influenced by vine pattern of planting, using seven varieties of sweet potato and three planting patterns. The experiment was a randomized complete block design with three replicates. Data collected were subjected to analysis of variance where significant means were separated by least significant difference (LSD) at 5% probability level. The varieties used are Donga white local (V2), Tropical Ipomoea Selection (TIS-91/198 (V1), TIS-008164 (V3), TIS-91/62 (V4), TIS-87/0087 (V5)), Donga purple local (V6) and Jalingo local (V7) and three vine patterns of planting (direct, ring and double ring planting) for 2021 cropping season. Results of the experiment show that both main effects (variety and vine planting patterns) had a significant influence on all the parameters measured vis: length of primary vine (cm), number of secondary vine, number of leaf, number of tuber per plant, weight of tuber per plant (kg) and tuber fresh yield per hectare (ton/ha) except number of nodes which was not been significantly influenced by variety and vine planting patterns.Vine planting pattern enhanced growth and yield performance on the varieties used. The highest value in all the yield characters measured was observed in Donga white local variety at single ring. Generally, all traits except number of nodes were significantly affected by the interactive effect of variety and vine planting pattern, indicating that determining vine planting pattern for each variety by considering their vegetative growth and yield habit is very important in crop production. Further research should be repeated on variety selection and vine planting patterns under cropping season at different locations in Southern and Northern guinea savanna of Taraba State.