PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF ELITE HOT PEPPER (CAPSICUM ANNUM) VARIETIES FOR YIELD AND YIELD COMPONENTS AT DERASHEA, SOUTH-EASTERN ETHIOPIA

Hot peppers are an important cash crop grown in different parts of the world. Hot pepper improvement for processing quality and yield increment being considered as crucial task at most developing country there by to boost the livelihood of producers. Four elite hot pepper varieties such as Mareko fana, Odaharo, Backo local and Halaba local were evaluated for fresh, dried and quality traits at Derashea woreda (Segen Peoples Zone), South-Eastern Ethiopia for two successive years (2013 and 2014). The experiment was laid out under completely randomized block design. The ANOVA result revealed that there were highly significant difference(P<0.01) among varieties on parameters of fruit length, fruit diameter, number of fruits per plant, fresh fruit yield and dried fruit yield in 2013 cropping season. In contrast, no significant differences (P<0.01) were observed among varieties in 2014 cropping season on stand count, fruit length, and fruit diameter. Backo local perform best regarding to fresh and dried fruit yield following Odaharo and Mareko fana. The result opens the door for end users to cultivate high yielded variety and create awareness for technology utilization. Hence, producers should have to cultivate Backo local variety for better yield and performance.