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Yield Performance of Four Onion (Allium Cepa L.) Varieties Compared with the Local Variety under Open Field Conditions at Anse Boileau, Seychelles
Abstract
A field experiment was conducted from April to September, 2005 and 2006 planting seasons at the Vegetable Evaluation and Research Station Farm located at Anse Boileau, Seychelles to evaluate the yield performance of four onion varieties, ‘Onion Orient\', ‘Lucy 15205\', ‘CAL 606\', and ‘Red Creole-2\' against the commonly grown variety ‘Red Creole-1\' under field conditions. The experiment consisted of five treatments laid out in a randomized complete block design with four replications. The results obtained showed that while variety ‘Onion Orient\' was the earliest to maturity, variety ‘CAL 606\' recorded the highest number of leaves, bulb size, biological bulb weight, economic bulb weight, dry bulb weight and best yield which were significantly (P≤0.05) increased by 34.6 %, 23.9 %, 16.8 %, 28.6 %, 35.0 % and 33.9 % respectively in 2005 and 40.0 %, 25.1 %, 10.9 %, 23.6 %, 30.0 % and 28.9 % respectively in 2006 compared to those obtained from the regular variety ‘Red Creole-1\'. Similarly, the yield produced from varieties ‘Onion Orient\', ‘Lucy 15205\' and ‘Red Creole-2\' was significantly (P≤0.05) increased by 9.8 %, 15.1 % and 28.8 % respectively in 2005 and 5.36 %, 6.19 % and 25.6 % respectively in 2006 compared to that obtained from ‘Red Creole-1\'. The yield of ‘CAL 606\' was the greatest, followed by ‘Red Creole-2\', ‘Lucy 15205\', ‘Onion Orient\' and ‘Red Creole-1\' respectively. The implication of this study, showed that variety ‘CAL 606\' performed best and could therefore be recommended as a potential replacement for the popular variety ‘Red Creole-1\' in Seychelles.
Keywords: onion varieties, yield
Journal of Science & Technology (Ghana) Vol. 28 (3) 2008: pp. 28-33