On farm Demonstration and Evaluation of Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas Lam) Varieties: The case of Kellem and West Wollega

Sweet potatoes are an important traditional food crop in Ethiopia, valued by farmers for their versatility, high caloric content, and taste. An improved, disease resistant and high yielding variety of sweet potato is very important to improve farmers ’ productivities and income. Objective of this study was to demonstrate the already verified and improved varieties of sweet potatoes on selected districts of West and Kellem Wollega Zones. The demonstration and on farm evaluation result of this study revealed that the Balo variety was best by comparing it with the local one. The average yield of Balo variety is 46.81 kg per 100m2 plots of land and 24 kg per 100m2 plots of land for local variety. The mean value of Balo variety at local market is 140.43 birr per 100m2 plots of land, which is preferable to local type. The net benefit per hectare for Balo variety, 39,613 birr per hectare, is larger than that of local variety, 21,945 birr per hectare. The mean weight of marketable tuber per plot is 0.9875 kg for Balo variety which is larger than that of local variety, 0.324 kg. Farmers ’ have got training through Farmer Research Group (FRG) approach, in which they have practically seen and tested two varieties through by applying full extension packages.