Agrotechnology

Abstract

Registration of a Newly Released Sweet Potato Variety "Hawassa-09" for Production in Ethiopia

Gurmu F and Mekonen S

Hawassa-09 (TIS-8250-1) is a white fleshed sweet potato variety that was selected from 12 genotypes and one local and three previously released varieties used as checks. The variety was developed by Hawassa Agricultural Research Center in southern part of Ethiopia. Hawassa-09 was released in 2017 for adaptation to low and mid altitude areas of southern and similar agro-ecologies of Ethiopia. Hawassa-09, along with the rest genotypes, has been evaluated in national variety trials across three locations, Hawassa, Halaba and Dilla for two consecutive years, 2014 and 2015. This variety gave a mean storage root yield of 49.2 t ha-1 with 56% and 283% yield advantage over the standard and local check, respectively. Then after selecting Hawassa-09 as a best variety, a variety verification trial was conducted for one more season in order to see the performance of the variety along with the checks across locations both on-station and on-farmers’ fields on a 10 × 10 m plots. Finally, Hawassa-09 was officially released and registered as a new variety due to is outstanding performance. It is a stable, best adapted variety with medium sized roots and good resistance to sweet potato virus disease, the major sweet potato disease in Ethiopia.