Performance of Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Varieties in Buno Bedele, South West Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

Abstract

Bread wheat is cultivated in a wide range of high and mid-altitude areas of Ethiopia ranking 4^th in area coverage and 2^nd in productivity. Although many improved bread wheat varieties have been released nationally and regionally, these varieties are not well disseminated and popularized. In Western Ethiopia “Buno Bedele Zone”, there is no varieties evaluated by our Research center and farmers are using any variety when they did get which is risky if there would be an occurrence of new diseases and other stresses. To alleviate such a crop’s potential challenge, recently released bread wheat varieties were tested for their phenotypic performance to confirm their environmental adaptation using Randomized Complete Block Design in three replications for two consecutive years (2019/2020 to 2020/2021) on two separate Gechi and Chora districts. Quantitative traits such as plant height, spike length, Biomass, and grain yield were collected and analyzed using RStudio and Genstat 18^th edition software’s. Qualitative trait such as days to maturity and days to heading were also collected. The combined analysis of variance indicated that the 12 tested varieties differed significantly for all traits. The highest combined mean grain yield was recorded by the variety “Liben” (4443 kg ha^-1) followed by “Ogolcho” (4268 kg ha^-1).