Abstract

The experiment was conducted at Meskan and Siltie districts in Southern Ethiopia with three released varieties and three candidate varieties of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) were tested by two cropping seasons (2014-2015) to evaluate high yielding and adaptable common bean by participatory variety selection. The experiment was arranged in a randomised complete block (RCBD) with three replications. Participatory varietal selection is the selection by which farmers evaluate finished or near-finished products from plant breeding programs on their own farms or localities. The best varieties namely Wajo, Remeda, Ibado and Tatu respectively were selected as top ranking by farmers. The same varieties had better performance and found to be promising from the analysis of researchers’ collected data except Hawassa Dume. Genotypes were highly significant (P ≤ 0.01) for all traits except days to maturity on which variety effects were not significant. Genotype effect on environment (Genotype environment) were exhibited highly significant (P ≤ 0.01) for only plant height. Whereas non-significant for the rest traits. Statistically there were not significant differences between genotypes x location (GXE) interactions and no changes in the rank of genotypes across locations. It suggests that there were not specifically adapted varieties for each location. Even though, Wajo was the highest and stable in grain yield across locations and Ibado was the fourth and the second stable genotype across environments. But Hawassa Dume was not stable in yield, the second highest in grain yield at Siltie district and the third highest at Meskan district. The other one was Remeda was not stable in grain yield, the second highest at Meskan district and the third highest at Siltie district. Tatu and Awash Melka were the lowest in grain yield across locations respectively. Grain yield in combined analysis had positive and highly significant (P ≤ 0.01) association with number of seeds per pod (rg=0.945**) at genotypic level and with days to maturity (rp=0.581**), number of pods per plant (rp=0.447**), number of seeds per plant (rp=0.552**) and number of seeds per pod (rp=0.342**) at phenotypic level. These traits are important to be used as selection criteria for yield improvement of common bean.

Keywords: Genotypic and phenotypic correlation; Participatory variety selection; Phaseolus vulgaris L.