Yield and growth of different amaranth genotypes under varying water regimes

Traditional vegetables are piloted as champion species for sub-Saharan Africa, a region experiencing high nutritional food insecurity and water scarcity. Amaranth is one of the traditional vegetables that has excellent potential to be commercialized in South Africa. The study's main objective was to assess the effect of different water regimes on six amaranth genotypes that were used to generate a MAGIC population as well as two reference genotypes. An experiment was conducted under rain shelters at ARC-VIMP, Roodeplaat Pretoria, Gauteng, during the 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 summer seasons. The experiment was laid out in a 3×4 factorial treatment in a completely randomized design with amaranth genotypes (VI060472, VI061494, VI044371, VI062433, VI061487, VI050446, 'Arusha' and 'Anna',) and water levels (20-25% (W1), 60-65% (W2), and 80-85% (W3)), replicated three times, of each genotype/water level combination. Data collected included total fresh and dry biomass, total fresh and dry leaf mass (t ha-1), leaf number, fresh and dry leaf mass in g plant-1 and initial and final plant height. The study's findings showed that there was a highly significant difference as well as an interaction effect for water levels and genotypes for the selected variables. Total dry biomass ranged from 32.93 to 61.36 t ha-1, and dry leaf mass per plant from 6.43 to 18.35 g. Higher productivity was observed from the VI061494 genotype. Therefore, this genotype can be recommended to farmers who want to commercialize amaranth; they will attain higher productivity, assuming that agronomic management is the same.