Promotion of Highland Maize Varieties to the Selected Districts’ of Arsi Zone Oromia, Ethiopia

Promotion of hybrid and OPV highland Maize varieties were conducted to highly monocropping system of wheat belt of districts of Arsi zone.The study was carried out from for two years (2016 &2017) with active participation of farmers in collaboration with district bureau of agriculture. A total of 92 farmers from six major maize potential districts namely Hetosa, Arsi-negele, Chole, Guna, Arsi-robe, Aminga & Seru were trained and a plot of land,0.25 ha was used for each farmer and supplied with two varieties (Kolba and Jibat) in the first year and another two varieties(Hora &Jibat) in the second year. The analysis result indicated that Kolba variety has given the highest average grain yield (62.92Qt) followed by Jibat variety (58.78Qt) and Hora variety (53.1Qt) scored third in average grain yield. Crop technology demonstration has given a good impact over the farming community as they were motivated by recommended technology in that case the full package (68.28Qt/ha) out produce 17% more than the farmers’ practice which is 56.65Qt/ha and farmers also could produce greater than 28% as to the national average, which is 39Qt/ha .The acceptance of these varieties was huge during the study seasons which clearly suggests the positive impact of demonstration over farmer’s practices and highland maize in Arsi zone is found to be one of the best technologies and recommended to more scale out activity with best performed highland maize varieties in areas where it is not introduced. Keywords: Arsi Zone, highland maize, promotion, varieties DOI: 10.7176/DCS/9-4-04 Publication date: April 30th 201