ABSTRACT

Banana belongs to the (Musaceae) family. It is a crop of immense economic importance worldwide. The aim of this work was to evaluate the performance of Banana cultivars for yield and yield components. Nine banana cultivars and one standard check cultivar were compared in Tepi agricultural research center. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design with three replications. The analysis of variance showed that, for all phonological and vegetative traits except leaf width, significant variation has been recorded. The combined analysis of the over seasons revealed significant difference due to cultivars and years for most of the characters tested. The over years combined analyses of variance revealed that there were significant differences (P < .05) among cultivars for all parameters considered in the study. Among the cultivars, the highest yield (39.58 t/ha) was recorded for cultivar Ambowha Selle-3, but statistically on par with cultivars Dinke-1 (38.27), Williams-1 (38.17), Ambo-2 (38.02), William hybrid (37.88), and Paracido Alrey (37.14) t/ha. In contrast, the lowest yield was recorded for lady finger (33.81) which is statistically similar to Chinese dwarf (36.72) and Paracido Alrey (37.14) t/ha.