Performance of colocasia (Colocasia esculenta (L.) schott.) germplasm with respect to growth and yield attributing parameters

Colocasia belongs to the family Araceae. Twenty germplasm of colocasia (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott.) were evaluated for their growth and yield attributing characters. It is grown as staples or subsistence crop throughout the tropics and subtropics. It was observed that the growth parameters were in its peak during 3–4 months after planting and declined thereafter. The highest number of functional leaves of 21.17 was recorded by AR Col-7 followed by ML-1 (20.67). The results on number of suckers per plant revealed that there were significant differences among different germplasm. The highest number of suckers per plant (6.53) was recorded in AR Col-7 while it was lowest in AS Col-2 (1.47). Data on leaf area exhibited significant differences among the germplasm. The maximum leaf area of 830.57 cm² was recorded in ML-1 followed by AR Col-8 (828.08 cm²) and Panchmukhi (816.30 cm²). It was observed that leaf area was gradually decreased till harvest. The highest yield of 253.96 q/ha was recorded in Panchmukhi however it remained statistically at par with ML-1 (246.21 q/ha) and Meghalaya Collection-1 (237.82 q/ha). The higher yield appears to be due to bigger size of corms and cormels and better plant growth. The germplasm with higher yield compared to other germplasm were due to better utilization of photosynthates resulting in production of large sized corms. Medhi et al. (1994) also reported highest yield of germplasm ML-1 under Meghalaya condition. Among the germplasm the lowest yield of 105.15 q/ha was noted in AS Col-2 whereas other cultivars exhibited as lower medium producer between the range of 133.05 to 183.41 q/ha.