Scaling up of improved mung bean technology in the potential areas of North Shewa Zone Amhara Region

Abstract

Pulse crops are important components of crop production in Ethiopia's smallholders’ agriculture, providing an economic advantage to small farm holdings as an alternative source of protein, cash income, and food security. Mung bean is one of the most important cash crops in the low land of the North Shewa zone. This research was, therefore, initiated to provide an insight of scaling up of Rasa (N-26) mung bean variety and documenting best approaches to maximize production and productivity of the crop through improving the availability of improved varieties to farmers. The activities were done in the low lands of North Shewa areas of Efiratana gidim, Kewot, Shewarobit, Ensaro, and Merhabetie districts, under main growing season for two consecutive years (2016 – 2017) using Rasa variety. About 54 ha of land were covered through disseminating 2.17tons seed and a total of 203 (including 2 female farmers) farmers participated and directly benefited during the dissemination of mung bean variety. The productivity of mung bean in the area was boosted to 1.6 tons ha-1 and a yield advantage of 45.5% was obtained from improved varieties compared to the local cultivar. The introduction of the improved variety Rasa (N-26) which has a large seed size, high biomass, and grain yield attracts the attention of farmers, experts, and local traders. Developing and verifying pesticides, technical backstopping and supplying of early generation seed, and also introducing post-harvest storage materials is very crucial for sustained production and productivity improvement of the crop.