Article Sidebar
Article Details
NAJ supports free online communication and exchange of knowledge as the most effective way of ensuring that the fruits of research and development practice are made widely available. It is therefore committed to open access, which, for authors, enables the widest possible dissemination of their findings and, for readers, increases their ability to discover pertinent information. The Journal adopts and uses the CC: BY license and is open access. This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the Journal’s published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Copyright for articles published in this Journal is retained by the Journal.
Main Article Content
Productivity of cocoyam/ cowpea intercropas influenced by cowpea growth habit
Abstract
Cocoyam was grown with vegetable cowpea in sole cropping and in intercropping to examine the effects of four contrasting vegetable cowpea growth habits on the productivity of the component crops in Umudike, southeastern Nigeria. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Treatments comprised all combinations of cocoyam and four cowpea cultivars (spreading Akidi ani, climbing Akidi enu, semi erect IT81D-128-14 and erect IT86F-2014-1) and sole crops of each crop. On average, intercropping reduced cocoyam corm yield by 22% in spreading Akidi ani, 25% in semi erect IT81D- 128-14 and 41% in erect IT86F-2014-1. Similarly, intercropping reduced cowpea pod yield by 21% in erect IT86F-2014-1, 22% in climbing Akidi enu and 27% in semi erect IT81D-128-14. The climbing Akidi enu had the least adverse effect on corm yield and gave high pod yield, with a high combined average land equivalent ratio (LER) of 1.8.
Keywords: Cocoyam, vegetable cowpea, growth habit, productivity
