Evaluation of spider plant (Cleome gynandra L) accessions for agronomic traits under greenhouse conditions

Spider plant (Cleome gynandra L) is one of the African leaf vegetables with great potential of enhancing nutritional security and livelihood of many resource-poor communities. Although spider plant has a good potential for improving diets and income, there is limited agronomic information on the existing spider plant genotypes for vegetable use. A greenhouse pot experiment laid as a complete randomized block with three replications was conducted to evaluate agronomic traits of 25 spider plant accessions for vegetable production. The trial was run for two seasons, April -June 2021 and January -March 2022. Data quantified include plant height, number of primary branches per plant, number of leaves, leaf chlorophyll content, leaves fresh and dry mass, and moisture contents of the leaves. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) of the collected data was performed using a statistical analysis at 95% significance confidence level. Results indicated that there is a significant variation in plant height, number of primary branches per plant, number of leaves, leaf chlorophyll content, and leaves fresh weight among 25 tested spider plant accessions. Plant height differed significantly (P≤0.05) from 49.83 (accessions ODS15037) to 18.28cm (Accession Rhothwe2). Furthermore, leaf chlorophyll content (SPAD values) for accessions ELG1907A (39.12), TOT3536 (37.51), ODS15045 (37.12), NC05015 (36.9), TOT5799 (36.39), and LAIOgongo has indicated a relatively high significant SPAD readings when compared to others. Genotypes TOT8926 (56.35g), ODS15019 (52.48g), O-S15020 (50.52g), and ELG1907A (49.42g), ODS15075 (47.85g) have indicated highly significant commulative leaf, tender shoots and flowers fresh biomass in g plant-1. On the other hand, BUAN1 (15.70g), Rothwe2 (18.21g), and Rothwe1 (27.46g) indicated the lowest fresh cumurative biomass production (P≤0.05). Further research is recommended on these potential genetic resources for improvement of agronomic traits of spider plant. Keywords: Cleome gynandra L , genotypes, leafy vegetable, volunteer crop