Determination of the required growth variables in a stevia agronomic experiment
1989
Buana, L. (Balai Penelitian Perkebunan Bogor (Indonesia))
In a stevia agronomic experiment, growth data are usually needed as supporting data to explain the effect of treatment on production. However, some of the growth variables do not function as they should due to the weak relationship between those variables and production. This experiment was aimed at finding the required growth variables and their observation time in stevia agronomic experiment. Plant height, leaf number and branch number were defined as growth variables, whereas dry leaf weight and fresh leaf weight as production variables. The data were obtained from the plants used in an experiment for optimum plot size determination that was set up in a Completely Randomized Design. Data on growth variables were collected weekly until harvest time. The determination of the required variables was based upon the correlation coefficient between those growth variables and production that could be simple or multiple and linear or nonlinear. The results showed that plant height had no close relationship with production neither with leaf number nor with branch number in the first up to the fourth week. However, correlation between production and leaf number and branch number in the fifth and sixth week were considerably high. Based on their multiple correlation coefficient, leaf number and branch number in the sixth week had a closer relationship with the production. The above mentioned facts indicate that in the sixth week, leaf and branch number function sufficiently well as supporting variables, whereas plant height has never functioned as supporting variable at all. Hence it is sufficient to collect data on leaf and branch number once during the experiment i.e. in the sixth week, whereas data on plant height are not required.
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