Evaluation the performance of commercial faba bean (Vicia faba L.) varieties on some morpho-physiological and N-fixing Traits under Eastern Ethiopia

Abstract Eight commercial faba bean varieties were evaluated under field and green-house condition in 2011 and 2012 respectively at Haramaya University to evaluate their performance for yield, yield components and incidence and severity of major disease. The experiment was laid out in RCBD with three replications. The mean squares of the genotypes were highly significant for days to maturity, stand count, reactions to rust, plant height, biomass yield and thousand seed weight implying that a wide range of variability has been obtained for the traits studied. The GCV ranged from 0.04% to 2606%, while the PCV varied between 0.4% and 2682.59% for the same characters. The estimated broad sense heritability ranged from 10.58 % to 98.72%. Genetic gains that could be expected from selecting the top 5% of the genotypes varied from 1.90% to 235.07%. Number of effective and non effective nodules per plant estimates high heritability and genetic advance. The first six PC accounted for more than 74% of the total variation. The first principal component which accounted for about 21% of the variability was due to Incidence of rust, number of pods and seeds per plant and stand count. The eight released faba bean varieties were grouped into three clusters and their differences were mainly attributed to the variation thousand seed weight and stand count. Seed yield had significant genotypic associations with plant height and number of pods per plant. In general, from this study Gachena adapted and suitable for production to the other part of the country where Gebelcho, Obse, Tumsa, and Cs20DK were recommended for production.