Yield and Yield Components of Sweet potato as Influenced by Plant Density: In Adami Tulu Jido Kombolcha District, Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia

Two best performing, morphologically different sweet potato varieties namely, Balella and Bareda, were used to determine optimum spacing between plants and rows in central rift valley of Ethiopia by participating different influential factors from the commencement of the activity. The results indicated that total tuber yield of Balella (644 ±105 q ha-1) performed better with spacing 20 cm x 80 cm than the rest of the treatments i.e., 20 cm x 60 cm (590 ±104 q ha-1) and 50 x 60 cm (522 ±137 q ha-1). But the net marketable yield obtained at spacing combination of 20 cm x 60 cm (590±104 q ha-1) was by far better being followed by 20 cm x 80 cm and 50 cm x 60 cm that gave average yield of 583±82 q ha-1 and 463±93 q ha-1, respectively. Correlation matrix of dependent variables resulted that green top weight was significantly correlated with total and marketable root yield (0.887** and 0.846**, respectively). This indicated that variation in total root yield and marketable root yield was accounted by the linear function of total green top yield r2=78.7 % and r2=71.6%, respectively. For Bareda, 20 cm x 60 cm spacing gave total yield of 409 ± 257 q ha-1 followed by 20 cm x100 cm and 30 cm x 60 cm that gave yield of 347 ±139 q ha-1 and 294 ± 63 q ha-1, respectively. The correlation of green top and total root yield obtained for Bareda was strong and positive (r=0.689**).