Less attention had been given to the performances of three-way crosses and its comparative advantages of these hybrids over single crosses. This study was carried out to evaluate the performances of three-way crosses in comparison to single crosses for yield and related agronomic traits and to estimate the magnitude of heterosis. The trial was laid out in a simple alpha lattice design of 10 × 6 for lines, 6 × 5 for single crosses (SC), and 9 × 5 for three way-crosses and planted in adjacent plots in the 2019 cropping season in three locations namely Ambo, Abala-Farcha and Melkassa. Single cross hybrids showed a highly significant (P<1%) variation for grain yield, plant height, ear height, and ear length at three locations. These single cross hybrids had showed also a highly significant genotype by environment interaction (P < 1%) for grain yield, plant height, ear height and kernel per ear. Regarding three-way crosses, there was a significant variation (P<5%) on grain yield in Ambo and Melkassa but on ear height and rows per ear in Abala-Faracho. The genotype × environment interaction was significantly varied for grain yield, ear height and ear length. In the comparison, 80% crosses in Ambo, 73% in Abala-Faracho and 67% in Melkassa showed that three-way crosses were better in their performance than that of their respective single crosses. On the other hand, the single crosses that out-performed their respective three-way crosses were higher in Melkassa than Abala-Faracho and the least were reported from Ambo. Similarly, the maximum better and mid-parent heterosis was from single cross 1(769%) in Ambo and single cross 7 (104%) in Melkassa whereas TWC 14 (52%) and TWC 24 (78%) were the highest better and mid-parent heterosis, respectively in Ambo, TWC1 (56%), and TWC30 (25%) were the highest BPH, and MPH, respectively in Melkassa.

Ethiopia is not self-sufficient to meet its increasing wheat demand from domestic production partly due to a lack of improved seeds. Efforts are undertaken to fill the gap through off-season production of wheat using supplemental irrigation and modern cultivars adapted to arid areas. This study was carried out to evaluate the genetic variability and adaptability of 15 Ethiopian bread wheat genotypes at different agroecologies in Wolaita and Dawuro zones, Ethiopia. The field experiment was conducted at three locations using a randomized complete block design with three replications during the 2019/2020 main cropping season. Analysis of variance based on 11 morphological agronomic traits and two major wheat diseases revealed that there were highly significant differences ( ) among the genotypes for all the traits studied at each location and combined over locations. The top three cultivars viz. Alidoro, Galema, and Honqolo exhibited higher average grain yield (GY) of 4.54 t/ha, 4.36 t/ha, and 4.0 t/ha, respectively, combined over locations. Eight of the traits (72.73%) exhibited moderate (30–60%) to high broad-sense heritability ( > 60%) values. High associated with high genetic advance as percent of mean was observed for the severity of both stem and yellow rust diseases combined over locations. GY was significantly related to aboveground biomass at all locations. This study depicted that cultivar Alidoro had wider adaptability for grain yield and resistance to wheat rusts.

A field experiment was conducted at Damot Gale District, Wolaita Zone, SNNPRS to evaluate the response of barely varieties to nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer application since the response varies from location to location due to several factors. Thus, there is a need to determine specific nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer requirement of specific variety. The barley varieties (HB1370 and Shage) were used as test crop and the experiment contained factorial combination of four levels of N/P (0/0, 23/10, 46/20, 69/30 kg ha^-1) and was laid out in randomized complete block design with three replications. The results from this study indicated that nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer showed no significant effect on number of days to heading while number of fertile tillers, total biomass and yield were significantly increased by application of nitrogen and phosphorus. However, the effects of nitrogen and phosphorus were significant (P < 0.05) on plant height, spike length, number of seeds per spike and grain yield. In general, grain yield tended to be higher under NP 69/30 kg ha^-1 treatment (2.02t/ha). In contrast, the lowest grain yield (0.86t/ha) was obtained from 0/0 NP treatment, although the interaction effects of nitrogen and phosphorus were significant on treatments with varieties and balanced amount of nitrogen and phosphorus. The future studies should articulate towards the studies involving more varieties, multi-location and additional rates of nitrogen and phosphorus applications, under diverse management practices such as research and farmer’s field’s conditions, which may facilitate fine-tuning of fertilizer recommendations.