Participatory Evaluation and Selection of Bread Wheat (<i>Triticum aestivum</i> L.) Varieties: Implication for Sustainable Community Based Seed Production and Farmer Level Varietal Portfolio Managements at Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Six recently released bread wheat varieties, namely Inseno-1, Kekeba, Millenium, Dandandaa’, Sulla and Tay together with check variety Kubssa were tested under participatory varietal evaluation and selection trial at Wente-Sestro kebele, Lanfuro Woreda, of southern nation, nationalities and people region Ethiopia using mother-baby trials methodology in four Mothers and fifteen babies on farmers fields in 2010/2011 cropping season with objectives of evaluating the performance, selecting well performed & farmers accepted varieties, and identifying farmers varietal selection criteria. Data were collected on crop Phonology, growth and yield & yield related traits from the mother trials and farmers perception on the varieties both from mother and baby trials. The analysis of variance revealed that the varieties differed significantly (P<0.001) in days to heading, grain filling period, days to maturity, biomass yield, number of tillers per plant, spike length, number of grains per spike, thousand seed weigh, harvest index and plant height and) in fertile spikes per plant (P<0.01. The variety Inseno-1 was significantly earlier in flowering (50 days) and maturity (86 days) than the variety Kubssa (58 and 91 days) and other varieties. The 1000-seed weight of the varieties Inseno-1 (40.88 g), Kekeba (38.05 g) and Millenium (32.45 g) was significantly larger than the 1000-seed weight of the check (27.87 g) and other varieties. The varieties Inseno-1 (3020.7 kgha-1), Kekeba (2678.6 kgha-1) and Millenium (2374.1 kg ha-1) gave significantly higher grain yield than Kubssa (1622 kgha-1) and other varieties. Grain yield correlated positively and significantly with biomass yield (r = 0.89**), 1000- seed weight (r = 0.87**), harvest index (r = 0.65**), grain filling rate (r = 0.97**) and negatively and significantly associated with days to maturity (r = -0.40*) and number of tillers per plant (r = -0.65**). The correlation coefficient values indicated that the early maturing wheat varieties having less number of tillers per plant, producing high biomass and heavier 1000-seed weight gave higher grain yields at Wente-Sestro. Farmers based on higher grain yield, disease resistant, earliness in maturity, larger and uniform seed size, seed color and marketability of the varieties have selected the varieties Inseno-1, Kekeba and Millenium as first, second and third from other tested varieties, respectively and decided to replace Kubssa by these varieties.