Abstract            Volume:8  Issue-4  Year-2020         Original Research Articles

Online ISSN : 2347 - 3215 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcret@gmail.com

Teff [Eragrostis teff (Zucc.) Trotter] is native to Ethiopia. Self pollinated warm season annual grass with the advantage of C₄ photosynthetic pathway and tetraploid 2n=40 plant/crop. It can grow in diverse agro-ecology zones starting from to 2800 m.a.s.l worldwide. Countries like USA, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, South Africa and Kenya produce teff for different purposes such as forage crop, thickener for soups, stews and gravies. Even if Teff grows in the indicated world countries, the largest production of Teff in the world is from Ethiopia where annually, above 6,562,325 farmers grow Teff on above 2.87 million hectares, which is about 22.95% of the total cultivated land in the country. From the production of the total grain crops teff contributed 16.1 % (4,471,378.7 tons) in the country. This is due to the farmer’s indigenous farming practice and varietal selection. Teff can be considered as alternative cereal crop for growers and also beneficial as an additional gluten free source and have higher fibour content for people suffering from coeliac disease and diabetics in the world respectively. Despite of these facts; the productivity of teff is still lower due to spatial heterogeneity of agronomic practices, climatic conditions and other factors. Teff ranks the lowest yield compared with other cereals grown in the world particularly in Ethiopia. The cause for the lower yield of teff is lodging, method of sowing, use of suboptimum seed rate and fertilizer application. Meantime the combined effect of those factors result up to 22% reduction in grain yield. This review demonstrated that higher performance in grain yield, tillering, panicle length and vegetative biomass signaling great yield potential due to Row sowing than broadcast and using of optimum seed rate could be recommended for maximum teff grain and straw yield. Moreover field based research on agronomic practices like method of sowing and seed rate should be preceded.

Download this article as