Evaluating improved Irish Potato varieties for the yield and agronomic traits in Southwest region of Ethiopia.

Abstract

Despite making substantial contributions to food security, revenue production, the provision of food energy, and the preservation of the resource base, the food potential of horticulture crops, particularly that of root and tuber crops, has not yet been fully tapped and utilized. In order to determine the optimal high yielding, pest and disease resistant/tolerant variety(ies) for the target area, the experiment was conducted to test the adaptability of enhanced potato varieties. Ten released potato varieties namely Belete, Dagim Guasa, Marachare, Challa, Gera, Jalane Gudane, Bule and Degemegn. were tasted at south west Ethiopia across three locations during 2019 cropping season. Three replications of the Randomized Block Design were used to conduct the experiment. Data were collected on plant height, tuber number per plot and fresh tuber yields (marketable, unmarketable and total), For the majority of the attributes under study, the analysis of variance (ANOVA) over sites showed significant differences (p 0.01) between types. In the present study, the mean average tuber weight per hector ranged from 8.972 t ha -1 to 23.19 t ha -1 for Gudane and Belete respectively. Totally, the result of this experiment shows that, variety Belete gave significantly higher yield (23.19 t ha -1 ) across all locations as compared to the standard check Gudane variety, which gave lower tuber yield (8.972 t ha -1 ). Thus, variety Belete could be recommended across the test locations and elsewhere in similar agro-ecological areas.