Diversity and Distribution of Enset Landraces in Amaro Special District, Southern Ethiopia

This study was conducted, with the aim of investigating the diversity, distribution variations and major factors that influence the abundance of Enset landraces in the Amaro special district, southern Ethiopia. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques were employed to collect data in two phases. The sampled territory covered main Enset growing agro-ecological zones (1400 to 3121 masl) of Amaro district. A total of 78 households from sixfarmers administration (FAs) were selected following systematic random sampling method. The FAs were selected based on the amount and extent of Enset and the agro-ecological variations. The study area was stratified into highland (2001 – 3000 masl), midland (1400– 2000 masl) and lowland (<1400 masl). The data were analyzed using descriptive statistical procedures. SPSS Ver. 20 was used to analyse the data. Landrace richness, diversity, and dominance per farm were calculated using PAST software. One-way ANOVA was used to make a test of significance in mean enset landrace richness among households and studied FAs. Shannon diversity index (H') was used to measure diversity of landraces and Shannon‟s equitability (EH) was also used to measure the equity of diversity of landraces through finding the ratios of observed diversity to maximum diversity. A total of 40 named landraces was recorded. However, the landrace diversity was not evenly distributed throughout the district. The highest diversity was being recorded in highland FAs. The results revealed that farmers exchange planting materials extensively resulting in a fairly high variation in the diversityof Enset landraces among the selected FAs. Diversity, distribution, and evenness of the different landraces of Enset varied among the study sites (P < 0.05). These variations largely depended on the age of the household heads, altitude, agro-ecology, precipitation, availability of sucker, status of managementand presence of organic fertilizer (animal dung). The Enset bacterial wilt disease was also one of the main factors limiting Enset richnessand diversity. Further research is required to know and exhaustively document the landracesand also to reduce the growing effects of Enset bacterial wilt.