Adaptability Study of Released Midland Maize Varieties at Midland of Guji Zone, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Lack of improved maize variety is highly limited in different parts of Ethiopia due to inaccessibility of different production factors. Guji Zone is one of such areas where the technologies are not widely addressed and adopted so far. This study was conducted by Bore agricultural research center with the objective of selecting and recommending adaptable high yielding and early maturing maize varieties for mid land agro-ecologies of Guji zone. The experiment was done at three locations Adola on station and two farmer’s field (Dole and Kiltu Sorsa). Six (6) released maize varieties with one local check were used. RCBD experimental design with three (3) replications was used on plot size of 5mx6m. All phonological and yield data were collected subjected to analysis using GenStat (18th edition) software. Combined data analysis was used to test the performance of the varieties across the testing locations. The result of the study shows that, all varieties revealed significant difference for the selected characters across the locations. Based on the obtained result, two Maize varieties (MH-140 and BH-546) were early maturing and gave higher yield .Therefore; these varieties were selected and recommended for the study area and similar agro-ecologies of Guji Zone.