Pre-extension demonstration of improved bread wheat technologies in Bale and West Arsi zones, Southeastern Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

This activity was conducted during 2016/17 cropping season in Adaba and Dodola districts of West Arsi zone, and Sinana, Agarfa and Gassara districts of Bale zone with the objectives of demonstrating the recently released bread wheat variety (Sannate) to the farming community and to build farmers’ knowledge and skill of wheat production and management packages in these districts. These districts were AGP II beneficiary and purposively selected based on their potential for bread wheat production and two kebeles from each district were selected on the basis of accessibility and potentiality. One FRG/FREG having 20 member farmers was established at each kebele and trained on wheat crop production and management packages. One improved variety (Sannate) and one standard check (Hidase) were planted on adjacent plot size of 32mx32m (1024m²) on 35 farmers’ fields. All recommended agronomic practices were equally applied to all the plots and the fields were closely supervised and were managed well. Participatory training was given for a total of 324 participants (255 farmers, 40 DAs and Supervisors, 29 experts and 12 researchers) on important agronomic and management practices. Field day also organized in representative potential kebeles on which a total of 466 participants (357 farmers and 109 experts) were attended on the event to show the field performance of the varieties. At maturity stage of the crop, the varieties were jointly evaluated with a team composed of researchers, farmers, development agents and experts. Tillering capacity (fertile tillers), disease tolerance for rusts, spike length, fertile spikelets, seeds per spike, plant height, lodging resistant, crop stand, seed color and size and overall yield were the common identified selection criteria across all locations 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 mean yield, 69.5qt/ha and 56.32qt/ha were obtained from Sannate and Hidase, respectively. The maximum yield of Sannate (72 qt ha^-1) was recorded in Dodola district where as the minimum yield was recorded in Adaba district (67 qt ha^-1). Besides, the combined analysis showed that Sannate has 23.4% yield advantage over Hidase. Since, Sannate was selected by the farmers, it is recommended to be scaled up/out in all demonstration sites and similar agro-ecologies of the study zones.