Evaluation of Newly Released Soybean Varieties (Glycine max.) under Smallholder Farmers’ Condition in Western Ethiopia

Soybean is a miracle legume crop in the world due to its multipurpose use. The global demand of the crop is increasing rapidly because of its growing demand particularly in the animal feed industries. But, the current production status of the commodity is not comparable to the rapidly increasing demands. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of improved soybean varieties under smallholder farmers’ condition in western Ethiopia. Six kebeles were selected purposively in Pawe and Jawe districts based on their potential and suitability for soybean production. A total of 24 hosted farmers were selected purposively by considering their willingness and performance to implement the demonstration. Pawe-1, Pawe-2, Pawe-3 and Ethio-Yugoslavia varieties were the materials used in the evaluation. Grain yield, seed size, pod number per plant, seed number per pod, plant height, disease resistant and maturity date were the main preference traits for farmers. Bothe qualitative and quantitative data were collected from 41 farmers (17 control group). The collected data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics by using SPSS software package. Farmers’ preference ranking also conducted based of their selection criteria. The combined results over locations show that 1767.58, 1723.46, 1619.58 and 1600.08 kg ha -1 mean grain yield recorded from Pawe-3, Ethio-Yugoslavia, Pawe-1 and Pawe-2 varieties respectively. Overall mean grain yield of improved varieties was 1677.68 kg ha -1 . The least (927.41 kg ha -1 ) mean grain yield observed from the local variety. Findings revealed that all the demonstrated improved varieties have significant yield advantage over the control at (p<0.01) in all locations. Farmers put Pawe-3 variety in the first rank based on the total score of their preference traits. Agricultural professionals and other concerned bodies have to give more emphasis to promote the newly released proven soybean varieties with full recommended packages to increase the production status further to ensure the demands of domestic processing and export marketing and this will contribute to the overall economic growth. Findings of this study suggest that 61% of yield gain and income increment achieved for adopters of improved varieties(Tufa et al., 2019). Adoption of improved soybean variety/ies couple with new management practices positively and significantly impacted on soybean productivity and farmers’ income. The results of propensity score matching (PSM) in this study revealed that soybean productivity increased by 15% for those farmers who adopted improved soybean variety(Teshale, 2019). Planting of soybean in the optimal dates potentially increased the productivity of soybean varieties(Fedorova et al., 2020). Benishangul Gumuz is one the potential regions of Ethiopia in soybean production. The crop is producing in all the three administrative zones of the region.