Pre-extension demonstration of improved bread wheat technologies in Ginnir district of Bale zone, Southeastern Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

Participatory on-farm demonstration of bread wheat varieties were carried out with the objectives of evaluating and selecting the best performed improved bread wheat technologies under farmers’ condition and to build farmers’ knowledge and skill of wheat production and management packages in Ginnir district of Bale Zone. A total of ten (10) participant farmers were selected from two wheat growing potential kebeles of Ginnir district to carry out the demonstration activity. One FRG/FREG having 20 member farmers was established at each kebele. Two improved bread wheat varieties (Bika and Ogolcho) were compared (demonstrated) with one standard check (Dhakaba) on plot size of 32mx32m (1024m²) by using each farmer’s field as replication. All recommended agronomic practices were equally applied to all the plots and the fields were closely supervised and managed well. Participatory training was given for a total of 176 participants on important agronomic practices and disease control measures. At maturity stage of the crop, the varieties were jointly evaluated with a team composed of researchers, farmers, development agents and experts. Tillering capacity, disease tolerance, spike length, seeds per spike, plant height, seed color and size, early maturing, adaptability to their locality, uniformity, crop stand and overall yield were the selection criteria identified by the participants for selecting the best performing variety/ies. Agronomic data and yield data were collected and analyzed using descriptive statistics in order to evaluate the performance of the varieties. With regard to yield, 54.5 qt ha^-1, 47.5 qt ha^-1 and 40 qt ha^-1 were obtained from Ogolcho, Bika and Dhakaba, respectively. Besides; Ogolcho has 36.25% and 14.74% yield advantage over Bika and Dhakaba, respectively. Whereas, Bika has 18.75% yield advantage over Dhakaba. Thus, Ogolcho ranked first followed by Bika and both varieties were recommended to scale up/out in Ginnir district and other similar agro-ecologies of Bale zonne.