Bananas and Food Security - Bioversity International

712 Les productions bananières / Bananas and food security – Session 4
to decrease in farmer-managed plots, since these plots were not yielding well and
farmers did not think it worthwhile to continue plot maintenance.
Plantain yield and sucker production
The number of plantain suckers and bunches produced for the plant crop (1996) and
first ratoon (1997) are shown in Tables 2 and 3. During 1996, the number of bunches
produced per farm was lowest for treatment 1, followed by treatment 2 and then
treatments 3 and 4. In Nyinahin, more than double the number of bunches were
harvested from plots with treated materials and researcher’s management (treatments
3 and 4), compared with plots with untreated material and farmer’s management
(treatment 1). In Gyedu, the difference between treatments was not so marked.
Table 2. Number of plantain suckers produced from treatments tested on-farm
at Nyinahin and Gyedu (1996-1997).
Mean number of suckers produced per farm per year
Site / year
Nyinahin
Treatment 1 Treatment 2 Treatment 3 Treatment 4
1996 106.3 192.7 339.2 276.3
1997a 44.0 (2) b Gyedu
91.7 (3) 189.3 (3) 144.0 (3)
1996 240.4 254.0 400.4 390.8
1997a 96.0 (3) 108.7 (3) 203.3 (3) 191.7 (3)
a Estimates of sucker production based on ratio of 1996 yield: 1997 yield, as sucker data was not collected
in ’97.
b Numbers in parenthesis indicate the number of farms used to calculate the mean instead of total
of five farms.
Table 3. Number of plantain bunches produced from treatments tested on-farm
at Nyinahin and Gyedu (1996-1997).
Mean number of bunches produced per farm per year
Site / year
Nyinahin
Treatment 1 Treatment 2 Treatment 3 Treatment 4
1996 25.7 46.5 59.8 57.7
1997 13.5a (2) b 26.3a Gyedu
(3) 35.0 (3) 35.0 (3)
1996 35.0 38.6 44.4 50.4
1997 20.0a (3) 22.3a (3) 27.3 (3) 36.3 (3)
a Estimates of bunch production based on ratio of 1996 yield: 1997 yield for treatments 3 and 4, since plots
for treatments 1 and 2 had been abandoned.
b Numbers in parentheses indicate the number of farms used to calculate the mean instead of total
of five farms.