Chala Tamiru,Tahir Abdala
This study was aimed at providing an assessment on farm diversity conservation status and the characterization of sorghum landraces to document diversity of sorghum landrace, characterize variety and assess how farmers in the study area practices seed management system of indigenous sorghum landrace at farming community. Eighty House hold from eight kebeles in four woredas of eastern Hararghe zone were chosen and reviewed. Structured questionnaire survey of households, focused group discussions, key informant interviews and field observations were used to collect data. The main traits farmers use to prefer a given variety over the other were maturity, yield potential, animal feed, grain size, grain color, tillering capacity, market demand. With look upon distribution category, most of the recorded landraces of sorghum were endangered and rare. Farmers from different study locations have reported several landraces to be endangered. Most of the recorded landraces of sorghum were endangered and rare which is near to threatened indicating the need for conservation of the landraces. On-farm conservation can remain workable, depending on the sensitivity of landraces to different factors causes farmers varieties become extinct and their capacity to develop and adapt to these factors. It can provide options to farmers and community to adapt to factors that causes farmers varieties lost. Therefore, attention should be given to conservation of farmers’ varieties in which involving farmers’ participation is very important in order to use their indigenous knowledge for conservation of farmers’ variety and on-farm conservation strategies for sustainable use. More agricultural research should be conducted on the characters and requirement of the crops for various regions and environments to conserve landrace variety.
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