Participatory Pre Extension Demonstration of Maize ( Zea Mays L.) Varieties with its Full Packages in South Ethiopia

Participatory pre extension demonstration works of three variety (BH-546, BH-547 and BH-661) were conducted in 2016 at two FTC and 11 beneficiary farmers field by the main objective of enhancing the adoption and diffusion of the technology, to collect feedback information from the farmers and to study cost benefit analysis. All data were collected from 100 m2 demonstration plots and the collected data were analyzed through Genstat Software, Simple descriptive statistics and matrix rankings. Farmers were evaluate the demonstration plots three times i.e., at sowing, knee height and maturity stages. Average yield performances that were obtained from farmers field were 49 Quintal/ hectare, 53 Quintal/hectare and 43.5 Quintal/hectare of BH-546, BH-547 and BH-661 respectively and Yield that obtained from FTCs were 54 Quintal/hectare, 55 Quintal/hectare and 48 Quintal/hectare of BH-546, BH-547 and BH-661 respectively. BH-547 variety shows better yield performance than other variety. The net benefit that were obtained from BH-546, BH-547 and BH-661 were 23,750 ETB, 24,280 ETB and 20,400 ETB respectively. Finally, the demonstration sites were visited by organized farmer’s field day and farmers select those varieties by different criteria and rank at first BH-547 by its ability to tolerate drought, earliness, resistance to pest and disease and resistance to lodging. Secondly they select as best BH-546 by criteria of good seed emergency rate, earliness, resistance to disease and pest and ability to tolerate drought. Finally it is better to scale up both BH-547 and BH-546 in larger scale to enhance adoption and diffusion of variety.