Promotion of Recently Released Mid Altitude and Lowland Sub Humid Agro Ecologies of Maize (Zea mays L.) Varieties to Selected Districts of Assosa Zone in Benishangul Gumuz Region, Ethiopia

The advancement of improved maize varieties was directed to highly pastoralist natives and maize producing belts of settlers in Assosa Zone. The study was supported in the 2015/2016 main season with active involvement of farmers in association with Districts and Zonal bureau of agriculture. A total of nine farmers from three main maize conceivable Districts (Homosha, Assosa and Bambasi). Even though, the pairwise and direct matrices selection of farmers at the field day result showed BH547 as first in the estimating grain yield followed BH546, the overall actual mean grain yield analysis result after harvest showed BH546 the first highest in grain yield (7.9t- 1ha followed by BH547 (7.7t-1ha) and BH540 (5.8t-1ha). The crop technology demonstration has given a decent impression over the farming and pastoral societies motivated selecting their traits of interest from varieties at the time of field day using pair wise and direct matrices selection as a tool. The farmers’ preharvest variety selection ranking and actual post-harvest grain yield ranking were more scientific and similar in the two improved varieties (BH546 and BH547). The receipt of these variability’s was massive through the field day which obviously recommends the constructive impression of demonstration over farmer’s preexisted variety and maize production in Assosa zoneis to be one of the best technologies and recommended to scale out these advanced varieties in areas where they are not announced.

Author(s): Yaregal Damtite, Hailemariam Solomon, Anduamlak Assaye, Firezer Girma, Alemu Worku, Dagne Wegary

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