The Eleventh Regional Wheat Workshop For Eastern ... - Cimmyt

A study ofthe adoption ofbread wheat production technologies in Arsi Zone - Setotaw el al.
during 1998 demonstrated the almost total demise of a previously popular bread wheat
variety: Enkoy occupied only 0.5% of the surveyed wheat area in Arsi during 1998. Enkoy
had been extremely popular with wheat farmers throughout Ethiopia as a result of its
properties of competitiveness with weeds, high levels of resistance to the major diseases of
wheat in Ethiopia, and wide adaptability across the many agro-ecological zones of the
country (Bekele and Tanner, 1995). Particularly after the demise of Dashen in 1988, the
production of Enkoy expanded to cover an estimated 70% of the national bread wheat area;
however, by 1993, stem rust levels up to 100S were reported in farmers' fields throughout
major wheat producing zones in south-eastern Ethiopia, and some fanners reported total crop
failure as a result (Bekele and Tanner, 1995). Thus, by the 1998 cropping season, fanners in
Arsi had essentially replaced Enkoy with newer varieties such as Kubsa and Wabe or with
seed of older varieties such as Pavon-76 and ET -l3 which continue to exhibit satisfactory
yields and adequate levels of disease resistance.
Fertilizer
In Ethiopia, given the stated national objective of attaining food self-sufficiency, there have
been considerable efforts expended in recent years to promote the adoption of chemical
fertilizers in small-holder agriculture. In particular, Arsi Zone has benefited from agricultural
technology development and dissemination activities since the inception of the first
comprehensive package projects during the late 1960s.
The survey results revealed that 92.3% of the wheat growers in Arsi Zone applied DAP on
wheat during 1998 (Table 6). A DAP adopter in Arsi applied an average of 90.3 kg of DAP
per ha on wheat while the weighted mean (i.e., including non-adopters of DAP) was 83.3 kg
of DAP per ha of wheat in Arsi. In terms of mean DAP application rates on wheat for
adopters, the five woredas are ranked in order as follows: Etheya (107.7 kg per ha), Lole
(98.7), Bekoji (93.1), Asasa (79.2), and Robe (70.0).
The survey results also revealed that only 26% of the wheat growers in Arsi applied urea to
wheat in 1998 (Table 6). The highest adoption rate for urea application was observed in
Etheya (61.4%), followed by Robe (23%) and Asasa (22.4%) woredas. Although the mean
rate of urea application by urea adopters was 67.2 kg/ha on wheat, the weighted mean rate of
urea application on wheat in Arsi was only 17.5 kglha.
The survey results also revealed that only about 15% of the fanners adopted the current MoA
blanket fertilizer recommendation for wheat (i.e., 100 kg DAP and 100 kg urea per ha).
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The method of fertilizer application varied between DAP and urea (Table 7). Virtually all
fanners in the region applied DAP correctly as a basal application at the time of sowing.
About 68% of the farmers applying urea applied all at planting while 32% practiced top
dressing of urea. Experimental results in central Ethiopia revealed that split application of the
urea N source, with 1/3 applied at planting and 2/3 top dressed at the mid tillering stage of
the crop, was agronomically beneficial under water-logged soil conditions (Ti1ahun et al.,
1996). Split application of N enhanced grain yield, grain N content and uptake, and apparent
N recovery and agronomic efficiency. It is worth noting that, in the current study, the highest
incidence of top-dressing of urE-a was reported in the Robe and Bekoji woredas; these two
woredas exhibit the highest rainfall amounts and incidence of water-logging among the five
surveyed woredas.
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