Evaluation of Lablab (Lablab purpureus L.) genotypes for Fodder production and their Nutritive Values for low lands of Southwest Ethiopia

The study was conducted to evaluate thirteen pre-screened lablab purpureus (L) genotypes out of ninety eight genotypes that introduced from ILRI Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for their potentials on dry matter and forage yield and also chemical compositions and in-vitro dry matter digestibility under lowland conditions of South West Ethiopia. The experiment was performed in three locations for two consecutive years during 2018–2019 and 2020–2021 cropping season. It performed by using completely randomized block design with three replications and analyzed by using SAS software version 9.3. Dry matter yield was significant (p  0.05) among the genotypes. The second level interaction effect genotype-year-location was not significant (p > 0.05) for both dry matter and seed yield. However, the first level genotype-location interaction effect was significant at (p < 0.001) for dry matter and (p < 0.05) for seed yield. Those show that the genotypes vary in performances across the condition of study location. Genotypes indicated in T6 and T8 were better yield advantage for dry matter and seed yield with 72.1% and 21.1% and also 62.2% and 8.9% over the standard check (Gebisa) respectively. The stability of genotypes was estimated using the mean yield of genotypes (x i ), regressing coefficient (b i ) and regression deviation mean square (s 2 d i ). Stability analysis shows that even though the better stable genotypes are 11613 and 10953 genotypes in terms of dry matter yield, 11619 and 14459 were the most stable in terms of seed yield. These suggest that better performed and stabile genotypes need to be further evaluated on live animal performance through feeding trials including other agronomic activities for better production and productivity.