Performance Evaluation of Onion Varieties at Biyo Awale Cluster in Diredawa Administration

doi:10.7176/alst/90-01

Abstract

Onion (Allium cepa L.) is an important crop worldwide. It is important in the daily Ethiopian diet. It is widely produced by small farmers and commercial growers throughout the year for local use and export market. No strong study has been conducted to evaluate the suitability of onion cultivation in Biyo Awale district of Diredawa. Hence, the present experiment was conducted to study the performance of improved varieties of onion for their suitability for cultivation in Biyo Awale district of Diredawa. The study was carried out during 2018-2019 cropping season to test the performance of onion varieties. Five high yielding onion varieties were planted in complete randomized block design experiment with three replications including local check at farmer’s field. The quantitative data on bulb yield, plant height, bulb size and number of leaves of onion varieties were collected. Harvesting was done and weighed when all onion varieties reach maturity (90% tops down). The results revealed that the tested onion varieties differ significantly for leaf length, leaf number, neck diameter, bulb diameter, average bulb weight and bulb yield. Among the varieties Bombay red and Melkam produced higher bulb yield (25.56 and 21.13 t ha -1 ) and gave 140.68% and 98.96% yield advantage over local check varieties, respectively. Therefore, Bombay Red and Melkam varieties were recommended to the study area and similar agro-ecology. Keywords: Bulb yield, Onion, Varieties DOI: 10.7176/ALST/90-01 Publication date: November 30 th 2021

Highlights

Onion (Allium cepa L.), is an important vegetable belonging to family Alliaceae and widely grown herbaceous biennial vegetable crop with cross-pollinated and monocotyledonous behavior having diploid chromosomes number 2n=16 (Bassett, 1986)
Onion cultivated on 31,673.21 ha with a total production of 2,938,875.85 quintals (CSA, 2017). It is recently introduction and rapidly becoming popular among producers and consumers. It is widely produced by small farmers and commercial growers throughout the year for local use and export market
Experimental material and Design Four improved varieties of onion introduced from Melkasa Agriculture Research Center, Melkam, Nafis, Bombay red, Adama red with local check collected from “Adada and Bishan baye” peasant associations were used in this study

Summary

Introduction

Onion (Allium cepa L.), is an important vegetable belonging to family Alliaceae and widely grown herbaceous biennial vegetable crop with cross-pollinated and monocotyledonous behavior having diploid chromosomes number 2n=16 (Bassett, 1986). Onion cultivated on 31,673.21 ha with a total production of 2,938,875.85 quintals (CSA, 2017) It is recently introduction and rapidly becoming popular among producers and consumers. Onion is valued for its distinct pungency and form essential ingredients for flavoring varieties of dishes, sauces, soup, sandwiches, and snacks as onion rings It is popular over the local shallot because of its high yield potential per unit area, availability of desirable cultivars for various uses, ease of propagation by seed, high domestic (bulb and seed) and export (bulb, cut flowers) markets in fresh and processed forms. The proper time for planting maternal bulb is of value because of the optimum use of the land seed favorite production both quantitatively and qualitatively. Planting bulbs with the proper diameter as well as high seed production, have been caused cost saving in the amount of consumption per hectare and, can be reduced the production cost (Basol et al, 1997)

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Results

Conclusion