Adaptation and Performance Evaluation of Bread Wheat (Triticumaestivum L.) Varieties in Guagusa-shikudad District of North western Ethiopia

Bread wheat is cultivated in a wide range of high and mid-altitude areas of Ethiopia ranking 4th in area coverage and 2^nd in productivity. Although many improved bread wheat varieties have been released nationally and regionally, these varieties are not well disseminated and popularized. In Western Ethiopia “Guagusashikudad” district, there is only one older bread wheat variety called Dendaa’(Danphe#1) under production which is risky if there would be an occurrence of new diseases and other stresses. To alleviate such a crop’s potential challenge, recently released bread wheat varieties were tested for their phenotypic performance to confirm their environmental adaptation using Randomized Complete Block Design in three replications for two consecutive years (2018/2019 to 2019/2020) on two separate locations. Quantitative traits such as plant height, spike length, 1000 seed weight, and grain yield were collected and analyzed using SAS 9.3 statistical package. Qualitative trait such as lodging and disease data (leaf rust, stem rust and strip rust) were also collected. The combined analysis of variance indicated that the five tested varieties differed significantly for all traits except for their grain yield. The highest combined mean grain yield was recorded by the variety “Lemu” (2720.60 kgha^-1) followed by “Ogolcho” (2665.00 kgha^-1).

Author(s): Gedifew Gebrie, Mulugeta Bitew, Desta Abebe, Tesfaye Gudissa, Desalegn Wondifraw

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