Participatory variety evaluation and promotion of farmers preferred improved rice varieties at Dembia and Takusa districts in central Gondar zone

Abstract

Participatory variety selection followed by pre-scaling up of farmers preferred varieties has been considered as an alternative approach to increase varietal adoption. Participatory variety selection was conducted to select and promote farmers preferred and agronomically best-performing rice varieties at Dembia and Takusa districts. Eight released rice varieties along with local variety (X-Jigna) were evaluated in the 2020 cropping season using a MotherBaby trial approach. The Mother trial was laid out in RCBD design with three replications and was used forcollecting agronomic and phenological traits. Meanwhile, the Baby trials were laid out in a simple plot using farmers as a replication for social data collection. The combined analysis of variance for the Mother-trials showed highly significant (P<0.01) differences for all measured traits due to variety, location, and variety-by-location interaction effects. From biological data analysis, the highest grain yield (3381.7 kg ha-1) was recorded at Shaga variety. Similarly, it was the first choice of the farmers among tested varieties due to high number of filled grains per panicle (96), earliness (138 days), high biomass yield (7.5 ton ha-1), and disease tolerance. As a result, Shaga was selected and prescaled up on 79.6 hectares with the involvement of 172 host farmers. A field day was organized at the zonal level to create awareness about the Shaga variety among rice producers. During scaling up, Shaga recorded an average grain yield of 3398.9 kg ha-1 and showed about a 46.19% yield advantage over the local (2325 kg ha-1) X-Jigna variety. In conclusion, the study showed the importance of pre-scaling up activities with participation of farmers in the farmers’ field to facilitate the new technology adoption to increase productivity at the household level.