Abstract

Barley is the main livelihood of farmers in East Gojam Zone particularly in Choke watershed. Choke watershed is home to more than 150,000 people living in six districts of east Gojam Zone. Smallholders in the area farm at the step sides of the mountain, and they practice the farming in a most traditional mechanism through oxen and horse plough. The farmers have no access for the improved varieties and they use their land races. The experiment was conducted at Aneded(research station)and Sinan (Wolekie kebele) districts during 2019-2021 main cropping season with objective of selecting the best adapting and performing varieties. Twelve varieties were laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications. Plant height, spike length, above ground biomass and yield data have been collected and analyzed using Statistical Analysis Software (SAS, 9.4). Levene’s test of homogeneity showed that p-value was significant (p<0.00001). As homogeneity test of variances result was significant the two experimental sites had no equal variances. Thus the results of the individual sites have been discussed separately. At research station, the grain yield of HB1966 was superior to the other varieties. The yield recorded for this variety was 4322.1 kg/ha followed by HB 42 (3570 kg/ha) and HB 1307(3522.1 kg/ha). At Wolekie IAR/H/485(3862.9 kg/ha) was superior followed by HB 1307(3350 kg/ha) and HB1966 (3306.6kg/ha). Thus the farmers, seed cooperatives and seed enterprises can use the varieties in respect to their tested locations or locations having similar or the same agro ecological environments.