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.   Key words: Cocoyam, cultivars, planting space, population, tuber yield.