Abstract

Faba bean is one of the important field crops grown in the mid and highlands areas of Ethiopia. More than 34 improved faba bean varieties has been released by different agricultural research centers in Ethiopia to date. However, farmers around the study areas depends on few low yielding local faba bean varieties. Taking this in to consideration the study was conducted at Amigna woreda, south eastern Ethiopia to evaluate the performance of improved faba bean varieties and recommend better varieties and increase production and productivity of the crops in areas. Six improved with one local faba bean varieties was used in the study. Significant different (P<0.05) were observed for considered traits (days to flowering, days to maturity, plant height, pods per plant, thousand seed weight and grain yield) but not for seeds per pod. The result of statistical analysis showed that variety Gora was the best yielder than other varieties with seed yield of 4631 kg/ha followed by Tumsa (3070.1 kg/ha) and Gebelcho (2800.4 kg/ha), while the Local check was the low yielder with seed yield of 1177.5 kg/ha at study area. Gora variety was also the largest seed with thousand seed weight of 731gm followed by Gebelcho 686.3 gm. Variety Gora, Gebelcho, and Tumsa were also selected by farmers. Thus, these three varieties are recommended and can be used by farmers around the study areas and similar agro-ecologies to increase production and productivities of the crop and improve livelihood of the farmers.

Keywords: Faba bean; Farmers selection; Participatory variety