Abstract
Faba bean is one of the oldest crops grown in Ethiopia. It is used as a source of protein in human diets, as fodder and a forage crop for animals and for soil fertility improvement. Its production in Ethiopia is totally rainfed on nitosols, cambisol and vertisol. Ethiopia is the second largest faba bean producer next to China. However, its productivity has remained very low compared to the potential due to biotic and abiotic stresses coupled with poor crop management practices provided by farmers. Thus, this review deals with impacts of abiotic stress on the growth and performance of faba bean and its remedial measures for continues production. Among the abiotic stresses soil acidity, drought and waterlogging provide a hostile environment for faba bean growth. Both soil acidity and drought are worldwide problem and sensitivity to acid soils limits the usage of faba bean in some cropping systems. Hence, the low production of faba bean is attributed by high moisture stress in the northern block of the country and soil acidity in the western and central highlands of Ethiopia. As chocolate spot the major faba bean disease it can be aggravated by any abiotic stress. To overcome low production of faba bean on acidic soils liming is an immediate option but choice of acid-tolerant varieties may further reduce the amounts of lime requirement and makes farming more attractive. Likewise, terminal drought can be managed by early planting and use of early varieties. Additionally, physiological traits like deep root, stomatal conductance and osmoregulation enables as drought resistant mechanisms. Breeding faba bean for acid soil, drought and water logging problem areas is the best option for sustainable production of the crop and to address the resource poor farmers that produce faba bean in their cropping system. Keywords: Abiotc stress, Breeding, Drought, Faba bean, soil acidity, Waterlogging DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/10-11-06 Publication date: June 30 th 2020
Highlights
Faba bean belongs to family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Vicieae, genus Vicia and species V. faba
Both soil acidity and drought are worldwide problem and sensitivity to acid soils limits the usage of faba bean in some cropping systems
Faba bean is one of the oldest crops grown by man and it is used as a source of protein in human diets, as fodder and a forage crop for animals, and for available nitrogen in the soil
Summary
Faba bean belongs to family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Vicieae, genus Vicia and species V. faba. It is a serious threat to crop production in most high lands of Ethiopia in general and in Oromia regional state in particular and about 40.9% of the total arable land of Ethiopia is affected by soil acidity (Abdenna et al, 2007) which covers 95% of the cropped area It becomes the major production limiting factor of faba bean in the highlands of Ethiopia (Mesfin et al, 2019). In Ethiopia some of the most important production complexes of faba bean are located in drought prone areas like the northern block of the country The problem in such areas is the shortage in amount of rainfall and the erratic distribution which mostly does not follow a consistent pattern of occurrence and there is high temporal and spatial variability in terms of severity, timing and duration of stress (Gemechu et al, 2016). The yield from these two environments used to calculate different stress tolerance indices
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