Vol. 3, Issue 4, Part F (2017)
Influence of minisett size of purple yam (Dioscorea alata) towards the seedling emergence and growth rate in production of seed yam
Influence of minisett size of purple yam (Dioscorea alata) towards the seedling emergence and growth rate in production of seed yam
Author(s)
Huck Ywih Ch’ng, Kevin Kor Yu Yang and Suhaimi Bin Othman
Abstract
Dioscorea alata is one of the yam species commonly known as purple, winged or water yam. It has huge beneficial value due to high nutrition and durability, and contains anthocyanin pigment which can be extracted as food colourant. In yam plantation, farmers are required to set aside 10 to 30% of their harvest as planting materials. To solve this problem, minisett technique was practiced to produce large number of healthy seed yams. However, conventional farmers have vague knowledge regarding minisett technique. There is a dearth information of minisett technique on cultivating Dioscorea alata. Therefore, this research was carried out to: (i) determine the seedling emergence and growth rate of minisett yams, and (ii) compare the seedling emergence and growth rate between minisett and macrosett techniques of yams cultivation. Four minisett weight-classes of purple yam, namely 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59 g and one macrosett weight-class of seed yam 150-200 g were prepared for this study. The macrosett tuber was prepared as a standard to compare with the minisett tuber. The trial was conducted in Agropark of Universiti Malaysia Kelantan Jeli Campus in a completely randomised design. Six parameter namely number of days required for sprouting, shoot height and girth, number of leaf and internode, and leaf width were observed. The data were collected to identify the growth rate of the tuber. Results showed that largest minisett yam (50-59 g) showed similar growth performance on shoot height and girth, number of internode and width of leaves with the macrosett yam (150-200 g). As a conclusion, 50-59 g minisett yam showed great potential to cultivate larger yam seed which may be used for larger yam production or direct consumption.
How to cite this article:
Huck Ywih Ch’ng, Kevin Kor Yu Yang, Suhaimi Bin Othman. Influence of minisett size of purple yam (Dioscorea alata) towards the seedling emergence and growth rate in production of seed yam. Int J Appl Res 2017;3(4):367-370.