Browsing by Author "Nakanwagi Mildred Julian"

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Accuracy of Using Leaf Blade Length and Leaf Blade Width Measurements to Calculate the Leaf Area of Solanum Aethiopicum Shum Group
(2018) Nakanwagi Mildred Julian; Sseremba Godfrey; Nahamya Pamela Kaboda; Masanza Michael; Balyejusa Kizito Elizabeth
Leaf area is an important parameter when determining growth response under normal as well as stressed environments. No attempt had been made to come up with an affordable but accurate alternative of measuring leaf size in research neglected leafy vegetable crops. Other techniques such as use of leaf area meters are either destructive, expensive or both. A study was conducted to determine leaf area in like-shaped leaves of research neglected crop plants, taking case ofS. Aethiopicum Shum group (SAS) germplasm. Data was collected on 552individual plants (including pure lines and hybrids) at eight weeks after planting where a third fully open leaf from top of each plant was considered. Leaf blade length (LBL) and leaf blade width (LBW) were linearly measured while leaf area(LA) was measured using a leaf area meter. This was followed by correlation and regression analysis of LA with LBL, LBW, and LBLþLBW. Correlation coefficients atp<0.001 ranged between 0.84 and 0.92, 0.79 and 0.88, 0.86 and0.95 for total germplasm, pure lines and hybrids, respectively. The coefficient determination (R2) ranged between 0.72 and 0.92. The best prediction for LA wasobtained with hybrid plants (LA¼-165.82þ5.38LBLþ16.17LBW) at R2of92%. The implication is that we can accurately and affordably predict LA fromduo measurements of LBL and LBW in SAS as well as in other crops having similar leaf shapes.
Performance of Solanum aethiopicum Shum group accessions under repetitive drought stress
(Academic Journals, 2017) Nakanwagi Mildred Julian; Sseremba Godfrey; Masanza Michael; Balyejusa Kizito Elizabeth
Drought is a serious climatic hazard to crop production, more especially when it occurs repeatedly. This created a need to identify repetitive drought tolerant varieties that recover following exposure to drought. Twenty accessions of Solanum aethiopicum Shum group were evaluated for their response to repeated drought exposure in a screen house at Uganda Christian University stressed and well-watered conditions in a split-plot arrangement. Data was collected on growth and yield parameters namely leaf area, plant canopy width, plant height, plant branching, fresh leaf weight, fresh shoot biomass, and harvest index. Exposure of plants to repetitive drought stress led to significant decrease in all evaluated growth parameters at p<0.001 except for plant branching. Similarly, yield parameters exhibited a highly significant difference among accessions and between water levels at p<0.001. Principal component analysis of growth rate traits showed that leaf area contributed to the highest variation for recovery from repetitive drought stress among accessions. The accessions that recovered best from drought stress include SAS108/2015, SAS163/P/2015, SAS183/G/2015, and SAS168/G/2015. For yield parameters, the accessions SAS137/2015, SAS148/2015, SAS108/P/2015, and SAS160/2015 had the highest dry shoot biomass. These findings indicate prospect for improvement of tolerance to repetitive drought stress in S. aethiopicum Shum group.