Morphologial evaluation of twenty Okra accessions in two agro-ecological zones of Nigeria

Abstract

Characterization or evaluation of crops is an essential first process of any crop improvement programme, information on genetic  closeness among genetic resources of crops is useful for both breeding and germplasm conservation, and this can be exploited in  breeding programmes to develop improved varieties. Twenty (20) okra accessions obtained from the National Centre for Genetic  Resources and Biotechnology (NACGRAB), Ibadan, were evaluated in trials conducted in two different locations namely, the National  Horticultural Research Institute (NIHORT), Ibadan, and the Federal University Oye - Ekiti Teaching and Research Farm. Each trial was conducted to evaluate the 20 okra accessions for fruit yield production potential across the two locations. The result showed the different  performances of the twenty okra accession across the two different locations as it showed that some of the parameters measured had  better performance over time when compared to others. In Ibadan, NGB00371 significantly was the tallest, NGB00387 significantly had  the largest stem diameter while NGB00469 had the longest leaves. However, NGB00308 had the longest days to 50% flowering, first  fruiting and higher fruit yield (32.96 t/ha). The performance trend at Ikole was different from that of Ibadan. However, NGB 00387  significantly had the longest leaves while NGB 00371 had the highest fruit yield. It can thenbe concluded that accessions of okra  evaluated showed significant variation in some of the parameters measured. it was observed that accessions NGB00387 and NGB00371  had better fruit yield in respective Ibadan and Ikole respectively.