Forty common bean accessions of multiple genetic background trait attribution regarding drought tolerance were selected based on mean yield performance from an earlier field test evaluation conducted using augmented RCBD. The various bean genotypes were further evaluated with phosphorus and water treatment interactions at two different levels for each factor. The experiment was conducted in a 2 × 2 × 40 factorial using RCBD with three replications under screen-house conditions at the CSIR-Crops Research Institute, Kumasi-Ghana. The objective was to select drought- and low phosphorus-tolerant common bean genotypes; which are suitable for tropical climatic conditions. The results showed that common bean with drought and heat trait tolerance survived, developed flowers and podded with seeds to physiological maturity, whilst genotypes with no heat trait tolerance had impaired reproductive structural development and growth disruption; thus, flowers could not develop into pods with seeds. This reproductive developmental anomaly was due to prevailing average daytime and nighttime high temperatures of 35.45 °C and 29.95 °C, respectively, recorded during the growth period, which reduced pollen fertility. Among the 478 experimental bean plants (two plants were missing) analyzed, 141 (29.5%) did not flower, 168 (35.18%) had their pods dropped whilst 99 (20.7%) podded with seeds to achieve physiological maturity. The podded-seed bean genotypes were of the SEF-line pedigrees, which were shown to be heat and drought-tolerant. Meanwhile, bean accessions with SMC, SMN and SMR code prefixes did not pod into seed despite possessing drought-tolerant traits. The effects of interactions between phosphorus and water treatments on the root characteristics of drought-tolerant common bean were as follows: root length, root surface area, average root diameter and root volume growth extensions doubled dimensionally under optimum conditions (P₂W₂) compared to stressed conditions (P₁W₁). The results from the present study identified four SEF-bean genotypes, namely, SEF15, SEF 47, SEF 60 and SEF 62, as superior yield performers, even under low soil phosphorus and in extreme high temperature conditions. Therefore, breeding for the selection of drought- and low-P-tolerant common bean for tropical agro-ecological environments must also consider concomitant heat stress tolerance.

A three-year field trial was conducted between 2014 and 2017 in the Ellembelle and Jomoro districts of the Western region of Ghana where rubber production is common to determine the optimum population density of plantain when grown in combination with immature rubber tree crops. The trials were arranged in a Randomized Complete Block Design with 3 replications. The treatments were sole rubber, sole plantain, and three intercrops of one row of plantain in between two rows of rubber, two rows of plantain in between two rows of rubber, and three rows of plantain in between two rows of rubber. The rubber clone used was GT1 while the variety of plantain used was false horn. The results showed that population density of plantain had significant effect on the growth of the associated rubber. Growing plantain at closer spacing of 1.5m under the high-density plantain treatment significantly increased plantain yield compared to the other cropping systems. There was a significant positive relationship between population density of plantain and the rubber tree growth and development. The optimum population density of plantain when intercropped with rubber was 1,666/ha. The study showed intercropping was advantageous over sole cropping for both crops.

Aims: Direct methods of measuring saturated hydraulic conductivity (K_s), either in situ or in the laboratory, are time consuming and very expensive. Several Pedotransfer functions (PTFs) are available for estimating K_s, with each having its own limitations. In this study, the performances of four popular PTFs were evaluated on different soil classes in the semi deciduous zone of Ghana. The PTFs considered herein were Puckett et al. (1985), Campbell and Shiozawa (1994), Dane and Puckett (1994), and Ferrer-Julià et al. (2004). In addition, five local data derived PTFs were used to study the possibility of using local datasets to validate PTF accuracy. Materials and Methods: A total of 450 undisturbed soil cores were collected from the 0 – 15 cm depth from three benchmark soils, namely, Stagni-Dystric Gleysol (SDG), Plinthi Ferric Acrisol (PFA) and Plinthic Acrisol (PA). The K_s of samples were measured by the falling-head permeameter method in the laboratory. Sand, silt and clay fractions, bulk density, organic matter content, and exchangeable calcium and sodium were measured and used as input parameters for the newly derived PTFs. Accuracy and reliability of the predictions were evaluated by the root mean square error (RMSE), coefficient of correlation (r), index of agreement (d), and the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) between the measured and predicted values from both tested and newly derived PTFs. The relative improvement (RI) of the newly derived PTFs from this study over the existing ones were also evaluated. Results: The newly derived PTFs in this study had higher prediction accuracy with r, d, RMSE and NSE ranging from 0.80 – 0.99, 0.79 – 0.94, 0.14 – 1.74 and 0.84 – 0.98, respectively, compared with 0.32 – 0.45, 0.27 – 0.50, 4.00 – 4.90 and 0.41 – 0.47 for the tested PTFs. The relative improvement of the newly derived over the tested PTFs ranged from 56.50 – 95.71% in the SDG, 70.73 – 96.89% in the PFA, and 65.37 – 95.81% in the PA. Generally, RI was observed to be highest for Model 1 in the SDG, and Model 4 in both PFA and PA, and lowest for Model 5 in all three soils. It was observed that the inclusion of exchangeable calcium and sodium as predictors increased the predictability of the newly derived PTFs.