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Agricultural practices and water resources management in the central highlands of Ethiopia is highly dependant and associated with climatic resources and their pattern and hence wise use of those resources is a priority for the region. Accordingly, a study was conducted to asses and critically quantity the climate resources of the central high lands of Ethiop, Bishoftu district. Thirty three years of weather record data has been used for the work. The onset, duration and end of the growing seasons were defined and quantified based on FAO and Reddy models while the dry and wet spell distributions and the drought events were calculated using the Markov chain models and the standardized precipitation index (SPI) respectively. The results revealed that the mean onset of the main (Kiremt) growing season was found to occur during the second meteorological decade and ended during the end of September. Similarly, though unreliable and only few occurred during the entire study period, the mean onset of the shorter (Belg) season was found to occur during the beginning of the first decade of April. The length of the growing season during the main rainy season, (Kiremt,) ranged from 112 to 144 days with a standard deviation of 9.6 days and coefficient of variation of 7.5%. However, the mean growing length during the Belg season was found to be 22.4 days with a standard deviation of 27 days and coefficient of variation of 122%. The results of analysis obtained both from the Markov Chain and Reddy models indicated higher probabilities of dry spell occurrences during the shorter season (Belg) but the occurrences of the same in the main rainy season (Kiremt) was very minimal. Like wise, the SPI model detected some drought events ranging from mild to severe classes in both seasons based on one a month time scale analysis. A considerable attention of maximizing crop harvest during the main rainy season is practically important

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Finger millet is one of the major cereal crops in western Ethiopia including Bako areas where the present study conducted. Wama is a common name of a finger millet (Eleusine corocana L.) variety with pedigree name of KNE # 392. It was selected out of finger millet breeding lines introduced from Kenya and released in 2007 by the Bako Agricultural Research Center for western Ethiopia. Wama was tested at on-stations of Bako, Billo-Boshe and Gute and their respective on-farms. It exceeded the standard check, Boneya by 10% in grain yield. Results of yield stability study revealed that Wama was a stable variety. It has brown seed color, larger seed size and larger harvest index than Boneya. Wama is also moderately resistant to diseases such as head blast, smut and leaf spot. The breeder seed of Wama is maintained by the Bako Agricultural Research Center.