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Evaluating the Performance of Recently Released Onion (Allium Cepa L.) Varieties at Highland Areas of West Hararghe, Ethiopia

Temesen Began, Husen Yesuf Sirba, Mastewal Gojan

Onion (Allium cepa L.) is widely produced by farmers and commercial growers throughout the year for local use and local markets as income generation by farmers and for export market by commercial growers in Ethiopia. Field experiment was conducted during 2018 to 2020 cropping season at highland areas of the west Hararghe aimed at evaluating the performance of recently released onion varieties. Treatments were composed of three released onion (Allium cepa L.) varieties such as Nafis; Nasik-Red & Bombay-Red arranged in a randomized complete block design (RCBD). Onion parameter data were analyzed using R software (R 3.4.1). According to analysis of the variance, onion varieties were showed significant (P≤0.01) difference for leaf number per plant, highly significant (P≤0.001) difference for leaf length (cm), plant height (cm) and days to physiological maturity, average bulb weight (gm bulb-1), marketable bulb yield (tha-1) and significant (P≤0.01) difference for total bulb yield (tha-1) but non-significant (P≥ 0.05) difference for unmarketable bulb yield. Hence, the highest leaf numbers per plant (16), leaf length (45.55cm), plant height (59.80cm) were recorded from variety Nafis whereas highest days to physiological maturity (127.25days) obtained from variety Nasik-Red. In addition, the highest average bulb weight (99.31gm bulb--1), marketable bulb yield (20.05tha-1) &total bulb yield (22.58tha-1) were recorded from variety Nafis. Thus, the result of this study revealed that variety Nafis was superior over rest varieties tested in relation to leaf number, leaf length, plant height, average bulb weight, marketable bulb yield and total bulb yield. Hence, variety Nafis caused additional leaf number (28%), leaf length (33.8%), plant height (23.66%), average bulb weight (26.27%), marketable bulb yield (20.85%) and total bulb yield (21%) as compared to onion varieties with lowest results of these traits. Therefore, since variety Nafis was superior over rest varieties in these parameters, could be recommended for study areas to maximize productivity and production of onion.