Effect of Bioresources and Environmental Variance on the Performance on Fruit Vegetable in Southern Nigeria

Abstract

An experimental study was conducted on the effect of bioresources and environmental variance on fruit and vegetable performance in southern Nigeria. Treatments used for the study were arranged without bias in split-plots fitted in a randomized complete block design and replicated three times. The treatments consisted of four bioresources (varieties of a vital fruit vegetable called watermelon) while environmental variance consisted of three planting dates. The combination of bioresource (Heracles variety) and the most suitable environmental indices identified (27th August planting date) performed better than other interactions in the experiment. The results obtained showed that environmental factors such as rainfall amount, temperature, relative humidity, and sunshine hours during the August 27 planting date suited the production of watermelon in southern Nigeria, which resulted in optimum performance in vegetative growth and yield characters of the studied fruit vegetable crop.