Abstract
Although the adverse effects of weeds on crop growth have been well documented for many tuberous crops, there are few reports on elephant foot yams. Therefore, the effect of the weeding frequency on the yield of elephant foot yams grown under the canopy of a 10-year old Eucalyptus plantation in West Java was evaluated during the rainy season (October 2003 to July 2004) . Four weeding treatments were evaluated, i.e., no weeding, control (W0), weeding at two months after planting (W1), weeding at two and four months after planting (W2) and weeding every month (W6) . The results showed that the weeding frequency affected the growth and yield of elephant foot yams. The number of leaves was larger and the life span of the leaves was longer for the W2 and W6 treatments than for the W0 and W1 treatments. The fresh mass of the corms increased by 34 to 285% by weeding. The dry mass of the weeds significantly decreased in the W2 and W6 treatments, compared with the W0 and W1 treatments. To obtain a high yield of elephant foot yams, weeding twice during the growing season, i.e., at two and four months after planting, is recommended.
