On-farm verification of five advanced bread wheat lines under recommended and farmers' crop management practices in the Ethiopian Highlands
1997
Asmare Yalew (Adet Research Center, Adet (Ethiopia)) | Tanner, D.G. | Mohamed Hasena | Asefa Taa
A multi-location, on-farm trial was conducted to test five advanced bread wheat lines under both recommended and farmers' management practices. Agronomic and economic criteria and farmers' assessments were used to evaluate the genotype by management combinations. Significant grain yield differences were detected among the wheat lines and between the crop management levels, but interaction between these two factors was less pronounced. Two advanced lines, HAR 1685 and HAR 604, were broadly adapted and clearly superior, in terms of grain yield potential and yield stability, to the other three advanced lines and to the check cultivars. Furthermore, farmers registered their general approval of the yield and seed characteristics of these two lines. Considering the urgent need to replace the popular bread wheat cultivar (Enkoy) which is highly susceptible to stem rust, these two lines should be recommended for rapid diffusion to farmers. The recommended wheat production package increased grain yield to 3284 kg/ha from a base level of 1806 kg/ha for the farmers' practice. A cross the five zones included in this study, the grain yield increment ranged from 1068 to 2061 kg/ha (49 to 283 percent) in relation to the farmers' practice. In general, the recommended package provided acceptable marginal rates of return using both standard prices and under varying input and output prices. However, the results suggest that high cost herbicides should be selectively targeted to problematic weed situations and not applied as prophylactic treatments. Production inputs have to be made available to peasant farmers of Ethiopia to attain self sufficiency in wheat production.
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