Density and Cutting Height Affect Production of Celosia (Celosia argentea L.) in the Humid Tropics

ABSTRACT Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) is the only region of the world where per capita food production has steadily declined over the past three decades. Field experiments were therefore curried out at Ibadan, Nigeria during the early (April-July) and late (August-November) rainy seasons of 1997 to determine the best density and culling height for concurrent seed and shoot (leaf + stem) yields of celosia in an attempt to increase income of resource-poor farmers, Cultivar TLV8 was planted at varied densities: 20,000; 40,000; 80,000; 444,444; 1000,000 plants/ha in factorial combination with cutting height: 0 (uncut); 5; 10; 15; 20 cm above ground level. Cutting treatments were imposed 5, 7 and 9 weeks after planting (WAP). An uncut plot served as check for seed yield. Cutting 15 cm × 40,000 plants/ha gave significantly highest seed + shoot economic returns of N502,340.00K/ha (US$25,117/ha) compared to all other treatment combinations. Seed and shoot cutting use efficiency (CUE) was best at 15 cm for 40,000 and 20,000 plants/ha, respectively. Density and cutting height enhanced dry matter partitioning into seed and shoot, respectively. It is concluded that concurrent shoot and seed production optimizes resource use efficiency better and give more economic returns than growing celosia solely either for shoot or seed. Seed production gives better economic returns than shoot production. Morphological characteristics such as number of leaf, number of branches (aerial apices) and CUE are indicators of yield in celosia. They are important for biomass partitioning and yield formation. The results indicate that cutting management increased productivity and has potential for mechanical harvesting of celosia in SSA.