Abstract

An experiment was conducted at the Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) in 2006 and 2007 to assess the effect of spacing arrangement on the growth and yield of six new groundnut varieties (Adepa, Azivivi, Jenkaar, Kpanieli, Manipintar and Nkosuor) in three (3) spacing arrangements (30 cm × 15 cm, 40 cm × 10 cm and 50 cm × 10 cm). The factorial experiment was laid in randomized complete block with three replicates. The results showed that groundnut variety and spacing arrangement significantly influenced its growth and yield performance. The Adepa and Manipintar varieties significantly increased pod yield by 9.1 and 77.7%, while Nkosuor and Azivivi increased mean (100) seed weight by 0.4 and 0.6%, respectively in 2006 and 2007. The SP1 spacing (30 cm × 15 cm) arrangement improved pod yield by 6.2 and 16.0% in 2006 and 2007 respectively over their respective means. Based on the pod yield results, the recommended groundnut varieties were Adepa and Manipintar using the 30 cm × 15 cm spacing arrangement.

Key words: Arachis hypogaea, sub-optimum, semi-arid, Guinea savanna, smallholder.