Abstract

Aim: The study was aimed to determine the variability of traits and provide information on interrelationships of yield with some important yield components.

Materials and Methods: Thirteen faba bean varieties were grown in randomized complete block design within three replications across all locations.

Results: The result of combined ANOVA revealed that there were highly significant (P<0.01) difference among varieties, locations and variety by location interactions for days to maturity, plant height, number of branches per plant, number of productive branches per plant, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod and grain yield; indicating that varieties performed differently across locations and the locations had different discriminating power to the major traits. Genotypic variance was high for number of pods per plant (28.70) and biomass yield (32.10). While low genotypic variance values were found for number of seeds, days to maturity and days to flowering. Heritability was high for hundred seed weight (79%) and lowest for harvest index (5%). High heritability with high genetic advance as percentage of mean for hundred seed weight showed the additive gene effect for these characters.

Conclusion: It was concluded that high variations and similarities exist among faba bean varieties across locations in the highlands of Oromia region.

Statistics