Evaluation of Garlic Accessions for Their Yield, Yield Components, and White Root Rot (Sclerotium cepivorum Berk) in the Southern Zone of Tigray, Ethiopia

Abstract

The objective of the study was to evaluate different local garlic accessions for their yield and disease tolerance to our location. The experiment was conducted at Zata and Ayba in 2015 cropping seasons. It was laid out in Randomized complete block design with three replications. The treatments were composed of 6 accessions and 2 nationally released varieties. The result of the experiment indicated mean yield, days to maturity, height, leaf number/plant, number of cloves/bulb, the width of the bulb, length of bulb and number of infected bulbs showed significant difference at both locations. The highest bulb yield was recorded from accession 07 (70.64 t/ha at Zata and 49.41 t/ha at Ayba) and tsedey variety (70.42 t/ha at Zata and 48.93 t/ha at Ayba) at both locations while, the lowest one was recorded from accession 08 (32.48 t/ha at Zata and 22.72 t/ha at Ayba), Beshoftu nech variety (38.13 t/ha at Zata and and 26.36 t/ha at Ayba) and 03 (38.92 t/ha at Zata and 27.23 t/ha at Ayba). The overall result indicates that Accession 07 showed that the highest yield and tolerance to the common disease of white root rot. So, it is promising to endorse Accession 07 in the southern zone of tigray and other similar agro ecology.