participatory evaluation and pre-extension demonstration of improved finger millet varieties with its full package in selected districts of debub omo zone, southern ethiopia

The study was conducted during 2018/19 production season in four purposively selected kebeles in debub omo zone. the main objective of this study was to evaluate and introduce the improved finger millet technology at farmers’ condition in the areas. a total of 20 participant farmers were selected purposively. individual interview by using likert scale, farmers’ research and extension group discussion and weight measurements tools were used to collect all necessary data. simple descriptive statistics such mean and percentages were used to analysis quantitative data and three point likert-scale ranking was used to rank farmers’ preferences data. based on the pre-selected farmers’ evaluation criteria, the field performances evaluation of improved finger millet variety was showed better field performances in drought tolerance, resistance to logging and diseases, spike length and plant height over the local cultivator. the yield performances of the improved variety under both farmers' management condition and on ftcs managed by researchers were 6.73% and 18.8% of yield advantage respectively over the local cultivator. therefore, introducing the improved finger millet technologies at large scale enhances its adoption rate and increase productivity of finger millet in the vicinities and areas with similar agro-ecologies