Development of high yielding Taro (Colocacia esculenta L.) Variety for mid altitude growing areas of Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Seasonal food shortage is amongst the principal problems of farmers in mid-altitude areas of Southern Ethiopia. In some of the world’s poorest nations, taro and sweet potato are important part of food security packages. Globally, taro is grown over a wide range of environments from 1,300-2,300m.a.s.l.; mostly by the resource poor farmers. Its compatibility with various types of limited in put farming systems (versatility) and reliability under conditions such as drought, high rain fall, and low soil fertility have made it attractive crop to farmers. There is no improved variety of taros so far released to farmers, and hence this trial was carried out to develop high yielding taro for the region and for possible official release. The experiment was carried out using RCB design at three distinctive locations namely Areka, Donga Tunto and Yirga-chefe using 11 taro accessions plus one local check from the respective locations during 2000-2002. There were significant difference exists among the materials tested and the top yielder variety (ARC/064/96) was promoted for further verification trial on farmer’s field. From the results of verification trial it was observed that farmers show great interest towards the candidate variety on top of the local ones. Finally after repeated evaluation made by National Variety Releasing Committee (NVRC), this variety has officially been released for mid altitude agro-ecology and similar growing areas of SNNPR with wet heavy fertile soil. The new variety is named as Boloso-one.