Journal of Tropical Crop Science Vol. 10 No. 3, October 2023 www.j-tropical-crops.com 166 Md. Abdul Momin, A.F.M. Saiful Islam, Md. Sharaf Uddin, Jahirul Alom, Mahadi Hasan Monshi Received 12/01/2023; Revised 08/07/2023; Accepted 25/07/2023 https://doi.org/10.29244/jtcs.10.03.166-175 Evaluation of Growth Performance and Economic Return Analysis of Bathua (Chenopodium album) Genotypes Md. Abdul Momin A , A.F.M. Saiful Islam A , Md. Sharaf Uddin B , Jahirul Alom C , Mahadi Hasan Monshi D * A Department of Crop Botany and Tea Production Technology, Faculty of Agriculture, Sylhet Agricultural University, Sylhet-3100, Bangladesh B Department of Agroforestry and Environmental Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Sylhet Agricultural University, Sylhet-3100, Bangladesh C Department of Public Administration, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet-3114, Bangladesh D Department of Economics, University of Chittagong, Chittagong-4331, Bangladesh *Corresponding author; email: monshimh.cu.de@gmail.com Abstract Bathua (Chenopodium album), a fast-growing weedy annual plant under the genus Chenopodium, is valuable for its high nutritional, medicinal and economic values as a leafy vegetable. The present study was carried out to evaluate the growth performance and economic returns of bathua genotypes in acid soil at Sylhet, Bangladesh. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Morphological and growth parameters were recorded at the final harvest. The maximum plant height, number of branches per plant, fresh weight of inflorescence and leaf length were recorded in local bathua 1(110.5 cm, 65.33, and 8.93 g, respectively). The maximum fresh weight of leaves per plant, the maximum dry weight of leaves per plant were recorded in local bathua 2 (39.92 g and 8.79 g respectively). Results revealed that the studied morphological parameters including plant height, fresh and dry weight of leaves per plant, fresh and dry weight of stem per plant, fresh and dry weight of inflorescence per plant, stem base diameter, number of leaves per plant, number of branches per plant and leaf length influences the foliage yield of bathua. The highest foliage yield (9.20 t.ha -1 ), total gross return (Tk.552000.ha -1 ), net return (Tk.367000. ha -1 ) and BCR (2.98) were found in local bathua 1. From the findings of the present study, local bathua 1 could achieve higher productivity and profitability in acid soils of Sylhet, Bangladesh. Keywords: bathua, evaluation, growth parameters, economic returns Introduction Bathua (Chenopodium album), a significant underused green vegetable with the chromosomal number 2n=36, is a member of the Chenopodiaceae family. It’s originated native to Europe and widely distributed around the world, including the West Indies, North America, South America, Africa, Australia, Oceania, and South Asia (Pandey, 2008). In Bangladesh, bathua is known as weeds but it is very popular as leafy vegetable as of its highly nutritive, medicinal and economic values. It is a very good source of protein, carbohydrate, minerals, fibers, vitamin A, and vitamin C (Agrawal et al., 2014; Singh and Singh, 2017). Bathua also has certain therapeutic benefits, such as odontalgic, laxative, antirheumatic, antiphlogistic, anthelmintic for hookworms and roundworms, and blood purifying properties (Sanwal, 2008; Singh et al., 2018). Therefore, the identification of high yielding and stable germplasm of bathua is crucial for its further improvement. The acreage and output of bathua in Bangladesh are quite small, and it is exclusively farmed locally and reportedly been observed growing naturally as a weed in fields of various crops, including wheat, barley, mustard, potato and gram (Bhattacharjee, 2001). Due to the lack of genotypes with high yields and insufficient or no systemic attention, the area and production of this crop have been constrained (Atikunnaher et al., 2017; Basavaraj et al., 2018; Yadav et al., 2013). Even the replacement of winter vegetable crop by irrigated rice cultivation is one of the major causes of the reduction of its production in the country (Hossain et al., 2017; Mainuddin et al., 2021; Sharmin et al., 2018). Although it has lots of benefits but it is one of the more resilient and