Late blight is an important disease of potato in Ethiopia, causing up to 100% loss in susceptible cultivars. In this study, two putatively resistant cultivars of relatively recent introduction (Jalenie and Gudenie) and a widely grown susceptible cultivar (White Flower) were evaluated for late blight severity and yield under five different contact fungicide (mancozeb) regimes and in unsprayed plots. Trials were carried out at two major potato production locations in southern Ethiopia: Awassa and Kokate, located at 1700 and 2156 meters above sea level, respectively. Greater disease pressure occurred at Awassa but the three cultivars performed consistently based on relative disease severity levels at the two locations. While White Flower was assigned a susceptibility score of 8 (highly susceptible) in both sites, Jalenie had scores between 1 and 0, and Gudenie had scores of 3 and 4, in Awassa and Kokate, respectively. With Jalenie, one application of contact fungicide was sufficient in both trials, while for Gudenie, two sprays appeared more appropriate as little or no gain was clear with three or more sprays. With the susceptible White Flower, four sprays were beneficial but little benefit was evident with the fifth spray.
Potato is a potential crop for enabling smallholder farmers to attain food security. However, it is underutilized in Ethiopia due to late blight occurrences and management of sprouting. Understanding what farmers are doing in potato tubers storage and disease management is important to find alternative solutions for existing problems. The purpose of this research was to identify potato varieties currently grown in the study areas, to investigate their responses to sprouting ability and late blight as well as existing management for sprouting and late blight. A survey was conducted with randomly sampled respondents in Shashemene ( 146) and West Shewa (318). Data were collected by interviewing farmers engaged in seed production and consumption. Farmers in the studied areas reported growing more than four potato local and improved varieties. Gudene variety earlier released as resistant to late blight was reported to be susceptible by 73.3% of the farmers. In the studied area, sprouting was controlled using diffused light storage and dark storage. However, chemical application was practiced by farmers to control late blight ranging from 82% to 94% and 93% to 99% at Shashemene and West Shewa, respectively. Since the application of chemicals raised the issue of health and environmental hazards, essential oils have been investigated and used to control late blight and sprouting in different parts of the world; however, it is not practiced ABOUT THE AUTHOR The authors have pooled together knowledge from their qualifications and experiences on different aspects of the subjects that went into this article. On the one hand, Dr. Bekele and Mr. Daniel have applied their agricultural knowledge to plant pathology, crop physiology, agronomy, postharvest handling and related expertise. On the other hand, Prof. Zemede and Dr. Ermias brought their expertise in biodiversity, ethnobotany, environmental science principles and methods as well as related areas. Thus the authors tried to address the problems from diverse angles along the different relevant specialization areas.
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