Participatory varietal evaluation of open pollinated maize in Western Amhara, North-west Ethiopia

Abstract

Open pollinated maize varieties are one of the best options for farmers who cannot afford the cost of hybrids, cultivating maize in low potential environments and cannot pay for inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides. The experiment was conducted to use farmers’ input and feedback on selection of well-adapted, high-yielding, and disease-tolerant maize varieties. Treatments were arranged incompletely randomized block design with three replications. Gibe-1 was better preferred open pollinated maize variety by famers due its cob length, disease tolerance, good husk cover and yield. Gibe-1 provided the highest grain yield in South Achefer (8.8 t ha^-1) and the best performing genotype across environments with grain yield of 7.8 t ha^-1. Gibe-1 also had a good reaction to common leaf rust and tercicum leaf blight. GGE biplot analysis classified testing environments in to four mega environments and showed high influence of the environment to grain yield with the contribution of variation 59.59% by the environment, 7.25% by the genotype, and 18.38% by interaction. Gibe-1 was identified as the most ideal open pollinated maize variety which produced the highest mean grain yield and was the most stable. Therefore, Gibe-1 is recommended as a potential open pollinated maize variety for Jabitehinan, South Achefer, and similar agro ecologies.