ISHS Acta Horticulturae 143: VIII African Symposium on Horticultural Crops
EFFECTS OF BED PREPARATION AND NITROGEN FERTILIZATION ON GROWTH, YIELD AND QUALITY OF SWEET POTATO (IPOMOEA BATATUS) |
| Author: | M. Mohamed |
| Abstract:
Two cultivars of sweet potato, local and introduced, were raised under ridged bed culture and flat bed culture and treated with three levels of urea nitrogen 0.0, 85.0 and 170.0 kg N/ha in seasons 80/81, 81/82 in the Rahad Research Station at El Fau. Flat bed culture, though resulting in luxurious vine growth, produced similar yields of storage roots to ridged bed culture. In flat bed culture no effort, time and capital was expended to construct and maintain ridges; but this gain was more than offset by the difficulties encountered in the digging of storage roots from flat beds and the high amount of damaged storage roots during the harvest operation. The vine growth responded positively to each raise in nitrogen level; but the storage root yield increased only up to 85 kg N/ha. At higher nitrogen levels it either levelled off or declined. While the local cultivar was a high vine yielder, the introduced cultivar was a high storage root yielder. The introduced cultivar was more prone to damage during the harvest operation and more so under flat bed culture than under ridged bed. | |
Download Adobe Acrobat Reader (free software to read PDF files) | |
