Berhanu Amsalu Fenta

Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research | EIAR · Crop Research Directorate

Common bean played a vital role in the national economy and used as food and cash sources for the smallholder households. Various common bean varieties were developed by the national lowland pulse research program. Nevertheless, most of the farmers had little chance to know and make their own choice from the ranges of available common bean varietie...

A Field experiment was conducted during 2017, 2018 and 2019 at Arsi-negelle and Melkassa to estimate the effect of the timing of weed removal and the duration of weed interference on mung bean yield, and to determine the optimum timing for weed control. The experiment was set up in a randomized complete block design in three replications holding fo...

A field experiment was conducted to determine the effect of weed control practices on weeds and grain yield of mung bean (Vigna radiata L.) at Melkassa and Arsinegelle during 2017 and 2018 cropping seasons. The experiment was set up in a randomized complete block design in three replications with six treatments. The treatments were consisted of wee...

Cowpea is one of the most important indigenous food and forage legumes in Africa. It serves as a primary source of protein for poor farmers in drought-prone areas of Ethiopia. The crop is used as a source of food, and insurance crop during the dry season. Cowpea is adaptable to a wide range of climatic conditions. Despite this, the yield of the cro...

Common bean is an important legume consumed as a source of food and used as a cash crop worldwide. However, its production and productivity are mainly constrained by bacterial and fungal diseases. A field survey was conducted to determine the prevalence, incidence, severity and association of factors influencing common bacterial blight (CBB) and an...

Interaction effect of variety by cropping system is expected to be arising from morphological features of component crops thus Selection of compatible varieties of component crops can increase productivity of intercropping systems. Hence, a field experiment was carried out at two locations to identify the best compatible varieties of maize and mung...

Cowpea is one of the most important grain legumes for human consumption and animal feeding. Despite this importance, its production is hampered by biotic and abiotic constraints. Genotype by environment interaction study was performed to identify the most stable cowpea genotype(s) and the desirable environment(s) for cowpea research in Ethiopia. Tw...

Cowpea is one of the most important indigenous food and forage legumes in Africa. It serves as a primary source of protein for poor farmers in drought-prone areas of Ethiopia. The crop is used as a source of food, and insurance crop during the dry season. Cowpea is adaptable to a wide range of climatic conditions. Despite this, the productivity of...

The study was conducted to estimate the effects of genotype, environment, and genotype × environment interaction on grain yield and yield-related traits and to identify stability genotype. At six environments, twenty-four cowpea landraces and one check were evaluated in a 5 × 5 triple lattice during the 2019 cropping season. Data were collected on...

Bruchids are a major storage pest of common bean. Genetic resistance is a suitable method to avoid grain losses during storage. The objective of the study was to introgress the arcelin-based resistance locus into selected advanced breeding line and to validate the molecular marker BRU_00261. A total of 208 progeny F4 families were phenotyped using...

Mung bean is an important pulse crop grown by poor farmers in marginal and drought-prone areas of Ethiopia. Information on the extent of genetic divergence in mung bean is vital to identify diverse genotypes for crop improvement and the efficient utilization of the existing genetic resources. Therefore, the objectives of the study were to assess th...

Executive Summary Common bean improvement research in Ethiopia is aimed at increasing the productivity of smallholder farms for enhanced food security and higher household incomes. In 2007, the National Bean Research Program of the EIAR and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) intensified the efforts to improve bean productivi...

Developing beans for high canning and cooking quality has been a major concern of plant breeders as the demand of consumers for beans in terms of quality is increasing. This study determined the effect of genotype-by-environment (GEI) on canning and cooking quality of common beans. Twenty three newly developed large-seeded bean genotypes and two st...

Enumeration of the native rhizobia population is important to determine the abundance of rhizobia in the soil and the achievement of inoculation. In Ethiopia, limited information is available on the population abundance of cowpea nodulating rhizobia. This study aimed to evaluate the population abundance of rhizobia nodulating cowpea and their relat...

Eco-physiological and physiological characteristics are used to study native rhizobial species for their ecological and physiological adaptability to different conditions. This study aimed to assess the eco-physiological and physiological characteristics of cowpea-nodulating rhizobia isolated from major production areas of Ethiopia. Twenty-eight is...

Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) is an emerging crop around the globe, with great potential to contribute to Africa’s food and nutrition security. Its important gain in popularity over the last seven years is attributed to the impact of activities carried out within the framework of the International Year of Quinoa (IYQ2013), which significantly...

Common bean is an increasingly important commodity in the cropping systems of smallholder farmers for food and income generation in drought-prone areas of Ethiopia. Despite its high yield potential on research stations, the actual farmer's yield is low. To minimize the yield gap, a range of high-yielding and disease-resistant common bean varieties...

Ethiopia is believed to be the possible center of genetic diversity for cowpea but little is known about its production and utilization across diverse agro-ecologies and cultures. This paper is aimed at documenting cowpea production, utilization, variety preference criteria and production challenges. The data were collected using semi-structured qu...

Cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp] is one of the important climate-resilient legume crops for food and nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa. Ethiopia is believed to harbor high cow-pea genetic diversity, but this has not yet been efficiently characterized and exploited in breeding. The objective of this study was to evaluate the extent and pa...

Cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp] is one of the important climate-resilient legume crops for food and nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa. Ethiopia is believed to harbor high cow-pea genetic diversity, but this has not yet been efficiently characterized and exploited in breeding. The objective of this study was to evaluate the extent and pa...

Protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) remains a public health concern in most developing nations. In Africa, PEM can be attributed to monotonous diets based on cereals, roots, and tubers, with little or no protein of animal origin. Diversifying cropping systems to include protein dense pseudo-cereals such as Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) could hel...

Cowpea is one of the few legumes which adapt well in warm semi-arid and arid climate. These quality of cowpea make as one of the potential crop as a component of the cropping system and livelihood for the smallholder farmers living on more than 60% dryland area of Ethiopia (Reddy and Kidane, 1993). Although, Vavilov (1956) accepted as Ethiopia is a...

Isolation and evaluation of symbiotic effectiveness of native rhizobia isolates are important to develop effective inoculant and achieve maximum legume productivity. This work was initiated to authenticate and evaluate the symbiotic effectiveness of cowpea nodulating rhizobia isolates isolated from major cowpea growing areas in Ethiopia. A total of...

Ethiopia is the origin of a number of food crops. Some of them are performing well under the ongoing climate change. Cowpea is one of a few crops in this aspect. Historically cowpea has secondary origin in Ethiopia. In this paper, we report on this dryland leguminous crop production-cum-utilization, which received a meager research and development...

The lowland areas of Ethiopia have considerable potential for increased oil crop production including groundnut. In Benishangul Gumuz Region, groundnut is cultivated in various zones and woredas under rainfed condition. However, due to insufficient improved groundnut varieties found in the region the productivity was low. Therefore, this experiment...

This study was undertaken to evaluate the extent and pattern of genetic diversity for immature pod traits in Ethiopia cowpea landrace collections. Eighty one landraces and improved cultivars were tested in a 9 x 9 simple lattice design. Analysis of variance revealed highly significant (P<0.01) or significant (p<0.05) differences among the genotypes...

Common bean research program of Ethiopia aimed at development of demanded variety for enhanced adoption, improve food and nutrition security as well as to boost income of smallholder farmers thereby enhancing foreign earnings of the country. To achieve these aim, the breeding program use different strategies. These incudes, importing demanded varie...

Accepted Sixteen genotypes were laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replications with the objectives of determining the genetic variability and heritability of seed cotton yield and quality traits in F5 lines. Genetic coefficient variability (GCV) ranged from 0.65% (degree of reflectance) to 12.02 (boll number plant-1)....

Common bean is one of the major pulse crops which played an important role to the Ethiopian national economy and to farmers as food and cash income. Ethiopia ranked third in common bean production in Eastern and Southern Africa. The country exported 40 percent of its total common bean production in 2010. Despite the wide dissemination of improved c...

Drought is among the major constraints in mung bean production. The main goal of the current study was to investigate the response of 60 mung bean genotypes to two constrasting moisture regimes using diverse indices. The experiment was made at Jinka Agricultural Research Center using a 6 x 10 alpha lattice design replicated twice. Correlation analy...

Undertaking a multi-environment trial prior to releasing a high yielding and stable varieties for a specific environment is a major step in plant breeding. Therefore, the objective of this work was to study the effect of Genotype × Environment Interaction (GEI) and evaluate the adaptability and stability of sixteen large white common bean genotypes...

Undertaking a multi-environment trial prior to releasing a high yielding and stable varieties for a specific environment is a major step in plant breeding. Therefore, the objective of this work was to study the effect of Genotype × Environment Interaction (GEI) and evaluate the adaptability and stability of sixteen large white common bean genotypes...

Ethiop. J. Agric. Sci. 29(3)89-104 (2019) Genetic Diversity of Ethiopian Cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L) Walp] Genotypes Using Multivariate Analyses Tesfaye Walle 1*, Firew Mekbib2, Berhanu Amsalu3 and Melaku Gedil4 1Department of Plant Sciences, Wolkite University, Wolkite, Ethiopia; 2School of Plant Sciences, Haramaya University, Dire Dawa, Ethi...

Tropical Legumes III - " Improving Livelihoods for Smallholder Farmers: Enhanced Grain Legume Productivity and Production in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia" project end of project presented poster

In common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L), limited information is available if potential of nodulation and symbiotic nitrogen fixation is associated with the expression of traits that confer better adaptation to drought conditions. Adaptive traits were therefore measured in N-fixing bean lines BAT 477, DOR 364, and PAN 185 and in non-nodulating lines B...

There are several hurdles to ensure sustainable seed production and consistent flow of improved legume varieties in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia (SA). The unreliable demand, autogamous nature of most of the grain legumes, and slow variety replacement rate by smallholder farmers do not provide strong incentive for private seed companies t...

The present research was carried out to identify and document the landrace diversity and ethnobotanical uses of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp) (Fabaceae) in Southwestern and Eastern Ethiopia. Data were collected through field observations, semi-structured interviews, guided field walk with cowpea farmers and users, and market surveys. Descrip...

Cowpea (Vigina unguiculata L.) is an annual pulse crop that belongs to the family fabaceae. Even though Ethiopia is secondary center of diversity for the crop, the current knowledge about its variety development and agronomy is neither complete nor conclusive through research under Ethiopian condition. To fill the existing gaps, a field experiment...

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is an important staple crop for smallholder farmers, particularly in Eastern and Southern Africa. To support common bean breeding and seed dissemination, a high throughput SNP genotyping platform with 1500 established SNP assays has been developed at a genotyping service provider which allows breeders without the...

The present study contained 16 testing genotypes and was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replications at Werer Agricultural Research Center (WARC). This experiment was conducted with the objective of evaluating the performance of segregating inbred lines. The analysis of variance revealed that the tested genotypes di...

Legumes are important components of sustainable agricultural production, food, nutrition and income systems of developing countries. In spite of their importance, legume crop production is challenged by a number of biotic (diseases and pests) and abiotic stresses (heat, frost, drought and salinity), edaphic factors (associated with soil nutrient de...

The major lowland pulses include common bean, cow pea, mung bean, and pigeon pea. They are mainly cultivated in areas with high temperature, erratic rainfall, and short growing season. Farmers make multiple uses of them such as source of protein, animal feed, source of cash and soil fertilizers. Considering its economic importance common bean get m...

Ethiopia is claimed to be a center of diversity for cowpea production. The crop is the most drought tolerant and could help the country overcome the recurrent drought problem; however, the yield is very low due to lack of effort to develop varieties. This research was conducted to evaluate the stability of cowpea genotypes and to estimate the magni...

The poster highlights an on-going DNA finger printing supported impact assessment study of improved bean varieties and associated management practices developed and/or disseminated under the Tropical legumes project, funded by Bill and Melinda Gates foundation (2008-2016). The study uses data collected in 2017 from a nationally representative sampl...

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) contributes to food and nutrition security, and income generation for smallholder farmers and enhances foreign exchange earnings in Ethiopia. The crop is one of the major pulses that serve as a rotational crop in cereal based cropping systems in the lowland areas. However, the gap between the potential and nation...

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is an important legume crop worldwide. The International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and its national partners in Africa aim to overcome production constraints of common bean and address the food, nutrition needs and market demands through development of multitrait bean varieties. Breeding is guided by...