Asian Research Journal of Current Science

Yam constitutes one among the major tuber crops in Nigeria. However, the availability of it has been affected by the rate of deterioration known as poor postharvest losses. After a short period of storage, roughly 10-15% of yams are lost, and this percentage rises to significantly more than 50% after a longer period. Three storage rooms were utilized in this study. Two of the storages (SQ1 and SQ2) were constructed from adobe and has an optimised thickness of 10 and 15 cm, respectively, SQ1 was improved by placing a water pan filled with 100 litres of water. The third storage (SQ3) was constructed using grass, which is conventional and serves as the control. The tubers were cured and stored under ideal conditions of 18-35°C and 40-65% Relative humidity for 10 weeks. This study was aimed at evaluating the effects of storage structures and period on adobe storage used for storing yam tubers. The study location is Wukari, Taraba State.  Monitoring of temperature, relative humidity, percentages of dry matter and moisture content, and mass loss took place from November 2022 to February 2023. The experiment showed that SQ1 temperature, relative humidity, mass loss percentage, dry matter content percentage, and moisture content percentage have been, in this sequence, from 23.17ºC, 45.15, 37.41, 62.59, and 1.51%, respectively. SQ2 recorded the following: 25.63ºC, 40.25, 38.83, 61.17, and 5.79%, respectively. On the other hand, SQ3, the control storage, had 27.48ºC, 35.37, 40.77, 59.23, and 14.18%, respectively. Based on the data provided, it can be concluded that SQ1 is a better storage for yams than store SQ3, which is used as the control.