Adaptability Evaluation of Early Maturing Food Barley in Highland Areas of Southern Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, there are several barley production constraints, among which shortage of high yielding and stable improved food barley varieties is the major one. The field experiment was conducted at Chencha district in the 2015 and 2016 cropping season using eleven improved food barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) varieties with one local check with the objective of evaluating the mean performance of food barley varieties for grain yield and other agronomic traits over years and across locations. The improved varieties studied include Biftu, Basso, Diribe Tila,Dafo, Misirach, Abay, Mulu, Mezezo, Setegn and Dinsho. These varieties, as experimental treatments, were arranged in a randomized complete block design with three replications. They were evaluated for days to 50% heading, days to 95% physiological maturity, plant height, spike length, tiller number and grain yield. Significant variations were recorded among the tested varieties for the measured traits over the years and across environments. The highest average grain yield (2279 kg ha-1, 2186 kg ha-1 and 2137) were obtained from varieties Diribe, Setegn and Basso without significant differences between the three ) respectively. Based on the results obtained under these study varieties Diribe, Seteg and Basso could be used for demonstration, popularization and pre-scaling up in Chencha and in the farming communities of similar agro-ecologies. Keywords: food barley, varieties, grain yiel