Abstract:
Cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum J. Presl) is a prominent spice throughout the world which
largely produced in the down south of Sri Lanka. As bark is the major harvestable portion, the
yield determining factors of cinnamon are quite different from many other crops. Therefore,
three yield indices have been recognized for cinnamon in previous studies as number of
harvestable stems per plant, length of the harvestable stem and the unit bark weight which
determine the bark yield of cinnamon. This study was conducted to identify the effect of spatial
pattern and type of planting material on yield indices of cinnamon. Seedlings and vegetatively
propagated plants of cinnamon; variety Sri Gemunu of same maturity were planted under three
different spatial patterns as 1.2×0.6 m with three plants per hill, 1.2×0.4 m with two plants per
hill and 1.2×0.2 m with one plant per hill as two factor factorial RCBD with four replicates at the
Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka. The plant density was equal (41,666
plants/ha) for all treatments. First harvest was collected after two years from establishment and
the next two harvests were collected in six months harvesting intervals. Four middle trees from
the middle row from every treatment were used for data collection. Number of harvestable
stems per plant and the lengths of harvestable stems (length with brown bark) were recorded
during harvesting. Total dry weight of bark was recorded by oven drying samples to a constant
weight and unit bark weight was calculated. The results revealed that, only the impact of
planting material was significant for the number of stems harvested per plant during all three
harvests. The number of stems harvested in seedlings (22,875 stems/ha) was significantly
higher (p < 0.05) than vegetatively propagated plants (17,602 stems/ha). When considering the
harvestable length of a stem, the interaction effect between spatial pattern and type of planting
material was significant (p < 0.05). Reduced spacing with less number of plants per hill has been
affected favorably for seedlings (189 cm) while wider spacing with higher number of plants has
been affected favorably for vegetatively propagated plants (125 cm). Interaction effect between
spatial pattern and type of planting material or effect as an individual factor has not been
influenced on unit bark weight of cinnamon during first three harvests. The knowledge gathered
during this study will be helpful for the future productivity enhancement studies of cinnamon.
