ABSTRACT
Good quality planting materials for yam cultivation is a major challenge and adapting the most preferred local varieties to high ratio propagation methods such as the vine cutting could help ameliorate this constraint. An experiment was conducted in the screen house at CSIR-Savanna Agricultural Research Institute to assess the response of ‘Labako’, ‘Nyamenti’ and ‘Kpamyo’ (check) to vine cutting under different substrates. The experiment was 3 x 6 factorial arranged in a completely randomized design with 3 replications. Single node cuttings were obtained from 3 months old plants and established in the various rooting substrates (carbonized rice husk; fermented rice bran; aged rice husk; top-soil ,cocopeat and carbonized rice husk + top-soil; 2:1).Highly significant differences (P<0.001) existed in main effects and interaction of the factors. All cultivars attained 100% survival in CRH (carbonized rice husk) and cocopeat. Kpamyo and Nyamenti had 89.6% regeneration in cocopeat, FRB (fermented rice bran) and CRH. Labako exhibited the maximum shoot growth (31 cm) in CRH whiles the minimum (10 cm) was observed in ARH (aged rice husk) for Kpamyo. Six nodes were produced by Nyamenti in CRH, whiles Kpamyo produced 3 nodes in the same substrate. Labako initiated 88% tuberization, higher than Kpamyo with 75%. Generally, the cultivars were successfully adapted to the vine cutting technique in CRH, FRB as well as cocopeat. CRH and FRB are locally available, hence less expensive to acquire and therefore recommended for cost-effective single node propagation of the popular local yam cultivars.