Performance of two water yam clones as influenced by different npk fertilizer rates at samaru, nigeria

Two field trials were carried out at the Institute for Agricultural Research Farm, Samaru in the northern Guinea Savanna ecology during 2008 and 2009 wet seasons to evaluate the performance of two water yam hybrid clones (TDa-92-2 and TDa 00/00104) and five NPK fertilizer rates (0-0-0, 40-20-20, 80-40-40, 120-60-60 and 180-90-90 kg NPK/ha). The treatments were arranged in a randomized complete block design and replicated three times. Results obtained showed that there was no significant difference between the two hybrid yam clones tested in all the growth and yield parameters assessed except establishment count at two months after planting (MAP) in 2009 when TDa-92-2 had high establishment count than TDa 00/00104 and total fresh tuber yield when TDa 00/00104 outyielded TDa-92-2, respectively. The effect of NPK fertilizer on the parameters assessed was not significant on establishment count in 2009, crop vigour in 2009, vine length in both the years, number of branches/plant, number of tubers/plot in both the years, number of seed yam in 2008, number of ware yam in 2008 and total fresh tuber yield in 2009 were not significant. However, increase in NPK fertilizer rates from 0-0-0 to 120-60-60 significantly enhanced seed yam in 2009, establishment count in 2008 at 2 MAP. Crop vigour in 2008, though was statistically at par with 80-40-40 kg NPK/ha. From the results obtained in this study it could be suggested that planting any of the water yam cultivars can be used to get good growth and yield of the crop using 80-40-40 kg NPK/ha.