Adopting the Split-Split-Plot Design in Boosting Internally Generated Revenue from Waterleaf Cultivation in Cross River State, Nigeria

This research work has carried out a split-split plot analysis of the effect of specie, fertilizer type and pesticide type on the weights of waterleaf shoots. The research work used data collected from a research farm (at No. 10 Access School Road, Atimbo, Calabar) that was set-up by the researchers strictly for this purpose. The data gave information on waterleaf species planted on the plots (Virginia, large-leaf, and Broad-leaf waterleaf), the types of fertilizers used (control, organic – cow dung, inorganic – NPK), and the pesticide types used (insect repellant, animal repellant, and microbicide). The review of literature showed an absence of a study which had considered the simultaneous impact of the adopted waterleaf species, fertilizer types, and pesticide types, on the weights of waterleaf shoots, as they either studied the impact of these factors on waterleaf growth independently, or viewed the growth of waterleaf in terms of height (not weight, being the case of this study); therefore, the study was significant on this premise. The ANOVA table in the study showed explicitly that the whole-plot (waterleaf species), sub-plot (fertilizer type), and sub-sub-plot (pesticide types) were not accurately chosen, as the sub-plot error was greater than the whole-plot error, with both being even greater than the sub-sub-plot error. This ultimately implied that there was far less homogeneity at the sub-plot level compared to the whole-plot and sub-sub-plot levels, hence suggesting that a proper reordering should have the whole-plot (waterleaf specie) as the preferred sub-plot, the sub-plot (fertilizer types) as the preferred whole-plot, while the sub-sub-plot (pesticide types) retains its status as the preferred sub-sub-plot, since it had the least F-ratio. Based on the research results, we have recommended that our findings be adopted by waterleaf farmers, since tendencies abound that this could better their understanding of waterleaf cultivation, and ultimately massively boost internally-generated revenue from waterleaf cultivation, as well.