Registration of Abdeta, Gebisa and Lalisa Vetch Varieties for Bale Highlands, Ethiopia

Three vetch varieties named as Gebisa (common vetch variety with Acc. No. 62632), Lalisa (woolly pod vetch variety with Acc. No. 6792DLot-2) and Abdeta (narbon vetch variety with Acc. No. 118) were selected and developed in 2010 by the Sinana Agricultural Research Center for the Bale highlands and similar agro-ecologies. These varieties were tested for 12 environments, at four locations (Sinana, Robe, Dinsho and Agarfa) for three years (2006/2007-2008/2009) to see their adaptability to soil and climate, to evaluate for yield and other agronomic parameters. Due to their superior performances, the three vetch varieties were selected and verified at four locations during the Bona 2009/2010 cropping season and released for production. Gebisa is characterized by growth habit of straggling or semi-climbing. The growth habit of Lalisa is crumbling and climbing whereas that of Abdeta is erect/upright growth habit striking similar to faba bean. The seed colors of Gebisa, Lalisa and Abdeta are pink, black and reddish brown, respectively. They performed better in yield and important agronomic parameters as compared to their respective checks. They were also better resistant to major diseases and have good nutritional quality. Moreover, the varieties were well adapted to the highland agro-ecologies of Bale. The introduction of these newly released forage varieties could contribute in mitigating the scarce feed resource conditions in the small-scale farmers of the highland agro-ecologies.