Introduction and Registration of Food Barley Varieties for Fedis and Similar Districts of the Eastern Hararghe Zone, Eastern Ethiopia

Abstract

Trials from adaptation to registration of food barley varieties were conducted at Fedis district in Eastern Hararghe Zone of Eastern Ethiopia during 2010/11, 2011/12 and 2012/13 main seasons to evaluate the performance of introduced improved early maturing food barley varieties. The treatment of adaptation trial consisted of six Barley varieties laid out in randomized complete block design with three replications. The results indicated that three varieties Aquila, Golden eye and Walker exhibited superior characters in terms of grain yield, early maturity and resistance to diseases. Golden eye was observed to give the highest yield per hectare with a value of 29.86 followed Aquila with a value of 26.00 quintal per hectare. The seed of three varieties that perform better both in yield and in disease reaction were distributed to five kebeles of Fedis district to be planted in FTCs with a brochure on all the management practice and farmers’ field day constituting 500 agricultural experts and more than 500 farmers were commented the good performance; as a result creating higher demand for the varieties. Then, Variety verification trial on the three candidate varieties with standard check was accomplished at four kebeles. The three varieties remained superior in yield and other parameters in these trials also regardless of the location. Unlike the adaptation trial the variety Walker gave highest yield of (25.97qt/ha) followed by Aquila (23.47qt/ha). The variety with the lowest amount of yield per hectare (13.83 qt/ha) was the standard check. Moreover, the candidate varieties were able to tolerate the leaf rust infestation that regularly occurred in the area. The trials were visited by National Variety Releasing Committee (NVRC); where by a fantastic news on three varieties registration in the name of Fedis Agricultural Research center for Fedis and similar agro ecologies with full mandate of the center to multiply and maintain the varieties with the intention of delivering to the beneficiaries keeping their identity was given to center. Recently, the varieties were able to successfully enter to the cropping system of the area benefiting farmers to solve significantly the food security problem that repeatedly occurs in the area.