Assessments of Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) and Rhodes grass (Chloris gayana) at Soddo and Kedidagamila districts of southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Assessments of Rhodes grass (Chloris gayana) and Alfalfas (Medicago sativa) was carried out on 36 farmers fields in soddo and kedidagamila districts of Southern Ethiopia during 2010/2011 cropping season in order to test the adaptability of grass and legume forages, create awareness to the farmers and evaluate the yield performance of the technologies by farmers evaluation criteria. The range and mean performance of annual grass and legume forages have showed considerable amount of variability among the traits. For instance, fresh biomass yield of rhodes grass varied from 31.9-98.0 and 27.8-39.3 tones/ha for soddo and Kedidagamila districts respectively. The plant height and number of branch/plant of rhodes grass also varied from 128.9-172.9cm and 4.0-16.0 for soddo and 110.8- 129.5 cm and 7.0-16.0 for Kedidagamila. Moreover, the fresh biomass yield of alfalfa in soddo is varied from 21.9-44.1 and 22.1-34.30 t/ha and dry matter 8.26-23.26 and 10.6-17.6 t/ha for soddo and Kedidagamila districts respectively. Based on farmers evaluation, both alfalfa and Rhodes grass are the most vigorous, persistent and highly adapted species, and thus can be safely suggested for the soddo district. Furthermore, the growth performance of Rhodes grass in kedidagamila also good but, productivity of alfalfa was poor and this probably resulting from unfavorable climatic conditions. The over all mean of the result, 90.26% and 69.43% of soddo farmers were selected rhodes grass and alfalfa. In kedidagamila, 88.88 % of the farmers were preferred Rhodes grass over 40.25 % of alfalfa.

Key words: Assessments, adaptation,  Evaluation Medicago sativa, Chloris gayana