In traditional yam (Dioscorea spp.) production systems in West Africa, finding sole seed yam producers is rare and up to 30% of harvested tubers from the ware tuber crop is reserved to plant an equivalent area of the harvested crop during the next season. Many farmers typically must make a trade-off between food and seed in the use of available tubers. A study was carried out using a factorial experiment in a randomised complete block design to investigate the influence of planting different minisett sizes at different planting periods on the yield of seed yam with the aim of improving the availability of this expensive input and saving more ware tubers for food or sale. Results showed that by doubling or tripling the minisett size from 30 to 60 or 90 g, yields of seed yam increased by 61.1 and 103.3%, respectively. The 90 g minisetts had the highest values for all traits studied but had the least sett multiplication ratio. The early planted crop yielded 137% more than the late-planted crop. Significant interactions between minisett size, planting period and season were found. In 2016, although the highest yield of seed tubers was from early planted 90 g minisetts (35.6 t ha−1), the yield of early planted 30 g minisetts (23.8 t ha−1) was similar to those of 60 g planted mid-season (28.7 t ha−1) and 90 g planted late (20.0 t ha−1). To produce a high proportion of seed size tubers with less planting material, early planting of 30 g minisetts is recommended. Such practice will enhance seed tuber availability and food security by saving 1–2 t ha−1 of tubers that would have been used as seed instead of food.

中文翻译：

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Minisett 大小和种植时间对种子山药 (Dioscorea Rotundata) 产量的影响

在传统的山药（薯蓣属spp。许多农民通常必须在使用可用块茎时在食物和种子之间进行权衡。使用随机完全区组设计中的因子实验进行了一项研究，以研究在不同种植时期种植不同 minisett 大小对种子山药产量的影响，目的是提高这种昂贵投入的可用性并节省更多的块茎用于食品或销售。结果表明，通过将 minisett 规格从 30 增加到 60 或 90 g 增加一倍或三倍，种子山药的产量分别增加了 61.1% 和 103.3%。90 g minisetts 在研究的所有性状中具有最高值，但具有最小的繁殖率。早播作物的产量比晚播作物高出 137%。发现 minisett 大小、种植期和季节之间存在显着的相互作用。2016 年，尽管种薯产量最高的是早播的 90 g minisetts（35.6 t ha-1)，早种 30 g minisetts 的产量（23.8 t ha-1) 与中期种植的 60 g (28.7 t ha-1) 和 90 g 晚播（20.0 t ha-1）。为了用较少的种植材料生产高比例的种子大小块茎，建议早期种植 30 g minisetts。这种做法将通过节省 1-2 公吨公顷来提高块茎的可用性和粮食安全-1块茎将被用作种子而不是食物。