Program

Seed is among the most important inputs in crop production. In areas like Tigray region of Ethiopia, where the weather conditions are not reliable for crop production, profitable wheat (Triticum aestivum) production is highly dependent on low input costs. Thus about 90% of the seed used by farmers is farm-saved generated from their own seed. These sources of seed, however, are not physically clean. Farm-saved seeds are seldom cleaned before being planted despite presence of foreign materials, broken, immature, diseased and undersized seeds and weed seeds. Thus a three-year participatory experiment was conducted in Didba kebele of Enderta woreda to evaluate the agronomic performance of salt solution purified farm-saved seeds against non purified seeds of three wheat varieties. The average grain and biomass yield of purified farm-saved seeds was found to be higher that non-purified seeds of the three varieties used. Grain yield of 4,347kg/ha was obtained from purified farm-saved seeds against 3,792kg/ha which was obtained from the non-purified seeds. In general, this experiment has shown that by purifying farm-saved seeds and improving its storage, it is possible to obtain yields comparable to that of certified seeds.