Abstract

Dolichos lablab (Lablab purpureus (L) sweet) is one the most important forage legumes used for livestock feed in crop-livestock production systems. It is a high-yielding forage legume commonly used as a supplementary feed. Thus, the newly released variety namely ‘Foyesa’ was evaluated with the standard check varieties (Gebis-17 & Doli-I) at six locations to asses forage biomass yield, stability, tolerance to major diseases and pests during cropping season of 2023. The result indicated that the new variety gave a high forage dry matter yield than the standard check varieties at each location and combined locations. The new variety was consistently superior in dry matter yield than standard check varieties which showed that better stability under diverse environmental conditions. It had 13.12 ton/ha forage dry matter yield and showed yield advantage of 14 % over the standard check variety. It had mean herbage dry matter yield in the range of 12.60-15.24 tons/ha on research filed and 11.45-13.50 tons/ha on farmer fields. The new variety also gave high seed yield (1324.7 kg/ha) with yield advantage of 20.17% over the standard check variety. The current study also stated that the crude protein content of the new variety (Foyesa) obtained (30.44 %) was found to be adequate and satisfactory. Generally, Foyesa variety was found to be a high yielder, high protein content, stable and tolerant to major lablab diseases and pests. Considering all these merits, the Ethiopian Variety Release Standing Committee approved the release of Dolichos lablab genotype ILRI-14490 with the breeder name “Foyesa” in 2024 to be cultivated and used in Low-midlands areas of East Hararghe Zone and similar agro-ecologies of Ethiopia.

Keywords: Dry matter yield, Disease, Pests, Seed yield, Yield advantage, Variety release