Morphological trait characterization of Enset(Ensete ventricosum landrace with Quantitative and Qualitative methods, in Gurage Zone, Central Ethiopia

Abstract Enset (Ensete ventricosum) is a perennial plant growing from 1200masl to 3100 masl and used as a major multipurpose crop in Ethiopia. Quantitative characterization of Enset is one of the curtail information to determine the yield of enset and qualitative characterization is important to determine the genetic variability of Enset. Wolkite University was conserving enset landrace since 2014, which is collected in different enset growing areas with the objective of morphological characterization of Enset landrace with both quantitative and qualitative trait characterization methods at the Yefereziye Enset conservation site from 2020 to 2021. The evaluation was conducted as a single plot experiment method with a total of 15 plants within a column, and each plant was planted with the size of 1.5m intervals. The data were collected randomly and tagged with five Enset landraces within a row. The data shows a higher significance (P < 0.001) within the enset landrace. Based on Pseudostem height, Pseudostem circumference, and plant height quantitative characterization, the following enset landrace Ankogena(136.6cm(1.34m), 127.8cm(1.3m) and 466.6cm(4.67m)), Ginbeniye (113.6cm(1.14m), 156cm (1.56m) and 354cm(3.54m)) and Erake (119cm(1.2m), 124.8cm(1.25m) and 410.4cm(4.1m)) enset landrace the higher performance respectively followed by Lemat, Fereziye, Gimbwe and Keribote enset landrace. Whereas the lower enset landrace performance was recorded from Cherkiwe (88cm(0.88m), 60.6cm(0.61m), and 336.6cm(3.4m)) and Ayides 55.4cm(0.55m), 6 8.4cm(0.68m) and 208cm 2.08m)) respectively. From the data, Ankogena, Ginbeniye, and Erake enset landrace were a higher performance compared to another enset landrace and recommended to the local farmer and for all food-insecure countries cultivating enset landrace to improve the livelihood.