Quality Analysis of Maize (Zea mays) Seed in West Guji Zone Southern Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

Study was carried out to analyze the impact of traditional storage structures on quality of two maize seed varieties of farmers saved seed collected from three traditional storage structures (i.e.; hang above fire places, sack and gotera in or outside home) used by farmers of study area with an objective of analyze the impact of traditional storage structures on maize seed quality. Different quality tests of physical and physiological parameters were evaluated and laboratory results were analyzed by SAS version 9.0.software. The experimental result shows highly significant differences for physical quality parameters between varieties and storage structures across location at P<0.001 for pure seed, inert matter and thousand seed weight. The result of interaction between varieties and storage structures shows significant variation for mean comparison of physical purity components parameters. The result of physiological quality parameters shows highly significant variation for normal germination percentage, abnormal seedling, shoot and root length and speed of germination and the result of variety and storage interaction for mean percentage comparison of physiological quality parameters shows highly significant variation. Finally the result of seed sampled from storage structures of hang above fire places were recorded higher percentage, which followed by sample from sack storage structures whereas seed sampled from Gotera shows variation from the rest of storage structures

Keywords: Seed quality, Maize, Storage structures and West Guji Zone