Abstract

Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate and select common bean varieties with high yielding capacity and other superior agronomic traits through farmer’s participation in decision making during the selection process.

Materials and Methods: The experiment was arranged in randomized complete block design. In one potential site, three farmers’ fields were purposively chosen. The varieties were evaluated for days to flowering and maturity, plant height, number of branches, number of pods, number of seeds, thousand seed weight and grain yield and farmers selection criteria such as plant establishment, lodging, earliness, synchrony to maturity, free of disease and insect pests, drought tolerance, shattering, seed size, seed color, market value and overall field performances.

Results: The result showed highly significant (P<0.01) differences among varieties for all studied parameters except number of primary branches per plant. The varieties Nasir, Hawassa-dume and Angar with 3.74 tha^-1, 3.13 tha^-1 and 3.05 tha^-1 were found to be high in yield, respectively. However, varieties Ibado, Loko and KAT-B9 were the farmers most preferred varieties in terms of their phenotypic traits such as large seed size, uniformity red and red mottled colored seed and early maturity. Participatory Variety Selection (PVS) helped the farmers in selecting the variety that possesses customer preference on market specification.

Conclusion: It was concluded that the area is highly market-oriented, high-yielding varieties were not top ranking in selection list due to their small seed size and low market demand. The promising variety Ibado was selected as the first top ranking followed by Loko and KAT-B9 according to farmers’ perception at all three farmer sites. 

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