Growth Characteristics and Yield Performance Evaluation of Hybrid Coffee (Coffea Arabica L.) Genotypes in Sidama, Southern Ethiopia

Despite Ethiopia is endowed with diverse genetic base for the Arabica coffee and is the center of origin, there is still a limited availability of yield competitive improved variety; hence, the national average productivity is far below the world’s average. Due to this reason, the national average productivity is very low. From the various sets of pure lines variety development program in Ethiopia, it had been observed that it is rarely possible to improve yield above 1800-2000 kg/ha through direct selection indicating the need to look heterotic hybrids to maximize yield as high as 2500- 3000 kg/ha. Thus, it could be useful to further evaluate the performance of the best performing hybrids for yield and growth characters at full bearing stage to identify high yielding hybrids for commercial use. Therefore, to bridge this gap and improve coffee productivity, it is essential to develop hybrid coffee varieties that are high yielding, stable and disease resistant. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate coffee hybrid genotypes for yield and yield components. The experiment was conducted at Awada and Leku to depict the growth and yield characteristics of four Arabica coffee promising hybrid genotypes). The experiment was conducted by using a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications during the years from 2016 to 2021. Data were collected for plant height, number of primary branches, number of secondary branches, length of the longest primary branch, number of main stem nodes, stem girth, internode length on the main stem, canopy diameter and yield for three consecutive years (2019 to 2021) per hectare basis. The results revealed the existence of statistically significant variations among the growth characters. Total plant height (1.99-2.45m), stem diameter (2.82–3.45cm), canopy diameter (199– 221.77cm), number of main stem nodes (27.96 – 30.66), number of primary branches (52.08 – 58.83), number of secondary branches (148.23 – 179.25), average ...