The Ultimate Option for Double Cropping: Evidence from Demonstration of Chickpea (Cicer Arietinum L.) Varieties at Sayo District of Western Oromia

Chick pea (Cicer Arietinum L.) is an important crop in Ethiopia and it’s cropping calendar does not compete with other crops. Though it is important crop, its production is limited in certain region of the country. To hasten and expand its production, demonstration of improved varieties of kabuli type chickpea varieties was conducted in 2018/2019 under farmer management condition. Different participatory technology evaluation like pair wise ranking and direct matrix ranking were employed for participatory evaluation of varieties and the mean separation for yield was done by one-way Inova using SPSS software. The result obtained indicated significant difference of improved varieties (Arerti and Shasho) P<0.05 compared to the local variety, and no significant difference was obtained between Arerti and Shasho. The direct matrix ranking of varieties by farmers revealed the preference of Arerti variety with 44% followed by Shasho with 41% and lastly local with 16%. Besides, the evidence from pair wise ranking indicated that farmers gave more weight for grain yield, seed color, disease tolerance, early maturity, seed size, pod per plant and seed per pod respectively. More importantly, extension gap of 0.558 ton ha-1 for Shasho and 0.624 ton ha-1 for Arerti were recorded, this indicated that there is a tremendous scope of extension activities in this zone to be conducted on chickpea production and management. Generally, based on yield performance and farmers’ preference, Arerti and Shasho varieties should be produced for crop diversification and double cropping in Sayo district and similar agri ecologies of Kellam Wollega zone.