Abstract
In recent days there is change in trend of rainfall across the country where its starts in May and ceases early-to-mid September. This implies that adjusting cropping calendar is vital to adapt to the changing climate of the area. The field experiments were carried out at Debre Zeit Agricultural Research Center (DZARC) and Alemtena during the main cropping season from 2015 to 2017 to determine appropriate sowing date for tef varieties. The treatments consisted of three sowing date (early-July, mid-July, and late-July) and two recently released tef varieties (Kora and Boset). The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design in a factorial arrangement and replicated four times per treatment. Data were taken crop growth, biomass yield, and grain yield. Combined analysis of variance overs years showed that interaction effects of variety by sowing date were significant effects on plant height and panicle length at DZAR while, at Alemtena, plant height and panicle length was significantly affected only by variety. At both location biomass and grain yield of tef was significantly affected by variety and sowing date interaction. Among the different sowing date treatments, sowing of Kora variety in mid-July showed the highest mean biomass yield (8444.4 kg/ha and grain yield (1813.3 kg/ha) at DZARC but at Alemtena the highest biomass (9766.2 kg/ha) and grain yield (1595.7 kg/ha) was achieved Kora was sown in earl-July. However, sowing of Boset variety at mid-July was comparable yield advantages. Over all, based on the result of this study, sowing of mid-July and early-July would be recommended for the mentioned variety production at DZARC and Alemtena, respectively.
Highlights
Tef (Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) is the most important cereal crop in Ethiopia, where it is the first in terms of acreage and second after maize in grain production volume [1]
The importance of tef straw has been becoming as equal as its grain yield as it is preferred as animal feed during dry period and sold at reasonable price [8]
The experiments were conducted at Debre Zeit Agricultural Research Center (DZARC) and Alemtena which is the sub site of DZARC, in Ethiopia three consecutives (2015, 2016 and 2017) cropping seasons under rain fed condition
Summary
Tef (Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) is the most important cereal crop in Ethiopia, where it is the first in terms of acreage and second after maize in grain production volume [1]. Its high iron content is associated with the low prevalence of hook-worm [7] and pregnancy related anemia in people consuming tef as staple food. Tef plays a vital role in food security, nutrition and income generation to resource poor farmers in Ethiopia [9]. It serves both as a staple and cash crop and recently it is gaining more attention in the world market mainly because the grains are free from gluten to which many people are allergic [10]
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