Yirga Belay

Aim of the study was to evaluate botanical insecticides to control tomato boll worm and leaf minor in western Tigray, Ethiopia. Field experiment was conducted during 2018/2020 in main crop growing season at Humera. A total of five treatments (Green miracle, Neembicidene, Melatonin, Gm+ Neembicidene and control no sprayed) were used in the field experiment. The experiment was laid out randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. The mean yield had a significant difference at (p<0.001) among the botanical insecticides. The highest mean yield was obtained from Neembicidene (348.8) followed by green miracle (195.8) Malathion (183), Malathion+GM (162.8), and control (84.2) qtha-1 respectively. The highest severity recorded from control was 85.41% for leaf severity and 71.3% for fruit severity. However, lowest recorded severity 18.73% for leaves and 4.55% for fruits were calculated from Neembicidene. The highest percent population reduction after chemical spray was recorded from Neembicidene (85.07%). Therefore, Neembicidene botanical insecticide recommended and promoted to verification trial to control tomato bollworm and leaf minor.

The experiment was conducted to characterize and evaluate mung bean accessions, to identify diseases, shattering, lodging resistant and suitable for combine harvesting. The accessions sown in a plot area of 2.1 m by 5 m with 1 m, 1.5m between plots and blocks keeping inter and intra row spacing of 40 cm and 10 cm, respectively. 73 entries along with two checks summing up 75 genotypes evaluated at field condition for their yield and yield components characters during 2019 main cropping season using augmented RCBD design without replication. R-software were used to analyze different characters including the descriptive statistics and SPSS20 used to analyze clustering. Mean of different traits days to maturity (76.46±11.21,), shattering(0.93±0.14), lodging (2.71±2.03), root length(21.±5.54), root volume(201.05±43.76), pods/plant (16.81±6.38), nodule number( 16.22±1.96), Seed yield(10.64±4.01), seeds/pod (11.77±2.80) and 100sw(3.26±0.97) was recoded. The accessions recorded different range of parameters; nodule number (0 to71.75), root length (8 cm to 34.5), shattering (0 to 100), lodging (0% to 1-10%), number of seeds/pod (7 to 23), hundred seed weight (1.8 to 3.26 gram), root volume (4.71 to 230.46 CM) respectively this big variation among accessions of different traits helps to promote breeding programme in mung bean. The seed yield of genotypes ranged from ZURD01(3.88) to ILRI6831(19.79) qtha^-1. Days to maturity was ranged from 61(ARKEBE) to 103(MEND01) after emergence. Three maturity groups; early (61 to 69days), medium (71 to 79 days) and late maturing (81 to 103days). Mean yield performance; cluster one had the highest mean yield (16.31qtha^-1) followed by cluster two (12.43 qtha^-1), cluster three (9.8), cluster four (6.65 qtha^-1) and cluster five (1.21 qtha^-1) respectively. The genotypes grouped in to three clusters based on their maturity and cluster one had the highest mean maturity days (91.74) followed by cluster two (75.97) and cluster three (66.37) respectively. The early, medium and late maturing genotypes recommended for moisture stress (350-500mm), optimum (600-800 mm) and high rain fall (900-2000 mm) areas respectively according to annual rain fall of the agro ecologies. Genotypes with high nodule number, high yielding, diseases resistance, better root length, shattering and lodging resistance will be important for variety development for mechanization, commercial production and further breeding programme.

The experiment was carried out to access the inter relationship of genotypes in their oil yield with seed yield, oil content and other yield components and to determine cluster of white seeded sesame genotypes and environments based on their oil yield. Seventeen sesame genotypes were tested at six environments in northern Ethiopia during 2015 main season. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Designs (RCBD) with three replications across all the environments. Seed yield had a significant and positive correlation (P≤0.01) with number of branches (r = 0.414) and number of capsules (r =0.468). Positive correlation seed yield with number of capsules and number of capsules indicated that better yield can obtain from highly branched plants and high number of capsules because the number of capsules increases with the degree of branching. Seed yield was negative significant correlated with days to maturity (r =-0.500) and flowering time (r = -0.626), significant at (p≤0.05) and (p≤0.01), respectively. The negative association between seed yield and days to flowering and maturity indicated that moisture stress after flowering might have caused relatively a yield reduction in the late maturing genotypes. Whereas, the early flowering and early maturing genotypes can escape the moister stress conditions. Based on the cluster analysis of 17 white seeded sesame genotypes classified in to different four distinct clusters. Cluster II, III and IV had high mean yield, oil content and oil yield than the other clusters. Genotypes grouped in those clusters had also greater genetic divergence important for farther yield, oil yield and oil content improvement program breeding in northern Ethiopia. Sesame growing environments also clustered in to four groups. Environments grouped in Cluster I, II and IV had high seed yield, oil content and oil yield. Hence, environments grouped in those clusters are important for seed yield, oil content and oil yield production improvement program in the study areas. Key words: Cluster analysis, correlation, dendrogram.