Evaluation of Faba Bean (Vicia faba L.) Genotypes for Yield and Disease Resistance at Werabe District, Central Ethiopia Region

Background and Objective: The productivity of faba beans is only 2.1 ton ha^-1 far less than the crop’s potential of 5.2 ton ha^-1, despite its enormous importance and area coverage. The current study was started to evaluate and identify high-yielding and disease-resistant faba bean genotypes for the study area. Materials and Methods: This experiment was carried out at the Worabe Research Center (WARC) main station in Alibazer districts during the 2017 and 2018 cropping seasons. For the current study, thirteen faba-bean genotypes and two standard checks (Degaga and Dosha) were collected from Holleta Agricultural Research Center. A randomized complete block design (RCBD) with four replications was used. Six agronomic traits and disease severity data were collected and analyzed using appropriate software (SAS 9.3). Results: The combined analysis showed no statistically significant variation among tested genotypes and years. However, the genotypes revealed highly significant variation for the tested traits. Accordingly, the mean yield of the genotypes evaluated in this experiment ranges from 1753.25^f kg ha^-10 (genotype ‘cool-0008') to 3776.75^a kg ha^-1 (genotype ‘cool-0030'). Only when genotype by environment interaction lacks significance do the relative means of genotypes across environments serve as sufficient indicators of genotypic performance. Conclusion: Therefore, genotypes ‘cool-0030' and ‘cool-0018' were the two highest-performing genotypes across the tested environments. Therefore, genotypes ‘cool-0030' and ‘cool-0018'which produced lower disease severity coupled with higher grain yield, can be recommended for cultivation in the study area.