The Release and Registration of “Walashe” Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) Variety

Walashe is a common name for six - rowed, hulled food barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) variety with a pedigree designation of IBON HI 14/15 P#116. The variety has been developed and released by Sinana agricultural research center for commercial production in the highlands of Bale. It has been tested at Sinana, Goba, Adaba, Dodola and Gassera areas during 2018-2019 main cropping seasons along with sixteen genotypes advanced from the ICARDA lines. The variety is well adapted to altitudes ranging between 2100-2500 m.a.s.l in the south eastern Ethiopia and similar agro ecology. Walashe is characterized by white seed color, large seed size, long spike and high yielder. This variety is a medium maturity & its mean grain yield performance ranged from 3.7 to 5.4 tonha-1 on research field and 3.3 to 4.4 tonha-1 on farmers’ field and has average thousand-kernel weight of 38 g. Walashe showed 14% and 18% yield advantage over the standard check Robera and Abdane as well as 15% overthird standard check EH1493, respectively. Based on stability parameters, Walashe showed relatively better grain yield performance and stable adaptability across locations years than the standard checks. The variety showed tolerant to major barley disease and tolerant to barley shoot fly than checksand exhibit compensatory growth after shoot fly damage and it was released in 2021.