Participatory Selection of Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) Varieties in the Midland Areas of Guji zone, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Irish Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the most important food security and cash crop produced at different agro-ecologies of Guji Zone, Southern Ethiopia. However, in the midland areas of Guji zone an access of improved potato variety is highly limited. Due to this reason and other bottle neck factors, the potential of the area to potato crop is not exploited. So, there is an urgent need to develop and promote technologies that suit for the area. As a result, an experiment was conducted in the midland areas of Guji Zone (Dibayu, Kiltu sorsa, Gobicha and Dole) at four farmers’ fields during 2019/20 cropping season to evaluate potato varieties with active participation of farmers and to identify and select adaptable, high yielding, and late blight tolerant potato variety (ies) for midland areas of Guji zone. Seven (7) improved potato varieties Gudanie, Chiro, Zemen, Bubu, Chala, Bedasa, and Gebisa were used as testing crop. The treatments were arranged in randomized completed block design (RCBD) with three replications for mother trial and farmers were used as replication for baby trials. Both agronomic and farmers data were collected based on the recommended standards. Data collected from mother trail were subjected to analysis of variance where as matrix ranking was used for data collected from baby trial. The analysis of variance indicated that significant differences observed at (P≤ 0.05) among the tested Irish potato varieties for stem number per hill, tuber number per hill, marketable and total tuber yield. However, non-significant difference was observed at (P> 0.05) among the varieties for days to 50% emergence and flowering, days to 90% maturity, plant height, tuber weight and unmarketable tuber yield. The highest marketable tuber yield was (41.32t/ha) was recorded for Zemen followed by Gudanie and Bubu (36.81 and 36.78 t/ha) respectively. But, the lowest marketable tuber yield 21.85t/ha was obtained from improved Gebisa variety. In other cases, farmers were allowed to evaluate the varieties using their own criteria. Accordingly, variety Zemen, Bubu and Gudanie were selected by farmers due to their best performance, high yielder, resistance to disease, number of tubers and marketability. Therefore, these three improved Irish potato varieties are selected based on agronomic data result and farmers preference and recommended for production to the midland areas of Guji zone.

Keywords: Improved variety, Irish Potato, participatory variety selection

DOI: 10.7176/JNSR/12-16-01

Publication date:August 31^st 2021