Revista de Patología Vegetal y Microbiología

Abstracto

Adaptability Study and Diseases Evaluation for Malt Barley (Hordeum distichon L) Varieties in North Shewa, Central Highlands of Ethiopia

Samuel Engida*, Tufa Bulto, Hailu Gebru, Mekuria Bereded, Abinet Terefe

Central highlands of Ethiopia have immense potential for barley production and processing having not only suitable growing climatic and edaphic factors but also accessible markets as brewery factories are highly confined in the area. However, farmers have adopted production of local and food varieties with poor productivity. An experiment was conducted to select well performed, adaptable, high yielding and disease resistant varieties. Significantly lower AUDPC values of 78.63%, 90.77%, 108.97% and 355.37% were obtained from Ibon-174/03, EH-1847, Miscal-21 and Traveller varieties, respectively, while significantly higher AUDPC values of 2150.05%, 2074.33%, 1472.22% were recorded from Grace, Moeta and Bahati verities, respectively at Dege. Whereas, no visible symptoms were observed from Ibon-174/03, EH-1847 and Miscal-21 varieties at Wachale. The combined analysis of variance showed that the average grain yields of varieties Ibon-174/03 (4236.5 kg/ha), EH-1847 (4343.4 kg/ha) and Traveller (4415.25 kg/ha) were higher followed by varieties Bahati (3429 kg/ha) and Beka (3428.5 kg/ha). Disease severity had a strong and negative significant correlation with thousand kernel weight (-0.94), spike length (-0.77) and grain yield (-0.69). The variety Traveller gave the highest grain yield advantage over the overall grand mean and the low yielder varieties recorded were from Moeta and Grace. Generally, Ibon-174/03, EH-1847 and Traveller were the varieties that showed better performance with their mean yield and other measured traits. Therefore, these varieties were recommended to be adopted by the farmers of the study area so as to improve their livelihood through barely production.