Registration of Bonsa and Bona-bas Fodder Oats Varieties for the Bale highlands, Ethiopia

Abstract

The fodder oat varieties named as Bonsa (Acc. No. 79AB384) and Bona-bas (Acc. No. 1660) were selected and developed in 2010 by the Sinana Agricultural Research Center for the Bale highlands and similar agro-ecologies. These varieties were tested for 12 environments at four locations (Sinana, Robe, Dinsho and Agarfa) for three years  (2006/2007-2008/2009) to observe their adaptability to the prevailing soil and climatic conditions, to evaluate for yield and other agronomic parameters. Due to their superior performances, the Bonsa and Bona-bas oat varieties were selected and verified at four locations during the Bona of the 2009/2010 season and released for production. These varieties were characterized by growth habit of erect and bunch at basal. The seed color of Bonsa was pale brown whereas that of the Bona-bas variety was dark brown. Both of these varieties performed better in yield and important agronomic parameters than their respective checks. They were also better resistant to major oat diseases and have good nutritional quality. Moreover, the varieties were well adapted to the highland agro-ecologies of Bale. The introduction of these newly released forage varieties could contribute in relaxing the scarcity of feed resource which is common among the small-scale farmers of the highland agro-ecologies in Bale and elsewhere in the country.

Keywords: Bale highlands; Bonsa; Bona-bas; Variety registration