Evaluation lesser yam (Dioscorea esculenta L.) tuber yield and economics under different crop geometry in lateritic soils of Konkan

Different species of yam are grown around the world especially in tropical region of Africa and Asia. Lesser yam (Dioscorea esculenta L.) is one of the important yam species cultivated in Konkan region of Maharashtra. Field experiments were conducted at Central Experiment Station, Wakawali, Dapoli (M.S.) for three years from 2011-12 to 2013-14 to investigate the effect of different crop geometry on productivity and profitability of lesser yam. The treatment consisted of 6 crop geometry viz., S1 - 90 x 90 cm, S2 - 90 x 60 cm, S3 - 90 x 30 cm, S4 - 60 x 60 cm, S5 - 60 x 45 cm and S6 - 60 x 30 cm. The release variety “Konkan Kanchan” was used in this experiment. An uniform tuber size 100-150 g was planted on ridges and furrow method on ridges at per different spacing treatment. The recommended NPK @ 80 : 60: 80 Kg. ha-1 was uniformly applied to all the spacing treatments. The pooled mean of three year indicated that the highest total tuber yield 31.29 t ha-1 was recorded by the spacing 60 x 30 cm, which was substantially and significantly superior over rest of the spacing. The wider spacing 90 x 90 cm reported maximum tuber yield per plant (1.106 kg) and average tuber weight (121.71 g). The economics of different spacing treatment was revealed that the spacing 90 x 30 cm realized the highest net returns of Rs. 3,66,619/- ha-1 and C:B ratio of 1: 2.21 in lesser yam.