The survey was carried out in 2016 in the production of citrus fruits at Adiha and Sheka Tekli irrigation schemes of Kolla Tembien and Tanqua Abergelle districts, to assess the type of diseases, the causes and the characteristic symptoms of the diseases and to identify the types of insect pests that inflict serious damage. The laboratory analysis result depicted that bacteria and fungi caused most of the diseases of citrus at Adiha and Sheka Tekli irrigation schemes. Exceptionally cyst nematode and climbing weed were problems in production of citrus at the irrigation schemes. Diseases like citrus melanose, brown rot, root rot, blue mold, sooty mold, leaf spot and fruit spot were among the fungal diseases identified at the irrigation schemes. Moreover, citrus greening, and citrus canker were also some of the bacterial diseases of citrus at Adiha and Sheka Tekli irrigation schemes. Conversely, the type of insect pest that predominantly constrained the production of citrus in both areas were woolly whitefly, citrus mealybugs, orange dogs, cottony cushion scale insects, brown scale insect, citrus leafminer, citrus psyllid, fruit fly, adult flatid planthoppers, citrus aphid, red scale and root weevil respectively. Most of these insect pests belong to the Hemipteran order followed by lepidopteron insect group. Milk vine had also been observed as one of the weeds that pose serious problems to some of the citrus trees at Adiha and Sheka Tekli irrigation schemes. Therefore, further research intervention should focus on management of these insect and disease pests at Adiha and Sheka Tekli irrigation schemes.

Mung bean (Vigna radiata L.) also known as green gram, golden gram, Oregon peas and chokoro (Swahili), is an economically important short duration legume crop for drought prone/ moisture stressed areas. Due to drought escape/early maturity in case of terminal drought in Ethiopia, improvement of grain yield of Mung bean (Vigna radiata L.) is the main objective to avoid food insecurity. A field experiment was carried out during the 2016 and 2017 main cropping seasons using a randomized complete block design with three replications in order to evaluate eight characteristics viz., days to 50% flowering, seed filling period, 90% physiological maturity, plant height, number of pod per plant, number of seeds per pod, seed yield and thousand seed weight for six mung bean varieties under rain-fed conditions at Abergelle Agricultural Research Center on station in Ethiopia. Analysis of variance showed that, differences varietal was observed for traits studied (p≤ 0.05) except number of pods per plant. The variety Rasa had better performance than the other varieties with the highest seed yield (1776 kg ha-1), while the lowest seed yield was obtained from local Sheraro (889 kg ha-1). Thus, Rasa is recommended as promising variety to the farmers of Abergelle areas.

Sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] grown under rain-fed conditions is usually affectedby moisture stress at different stages, resulting in reduced yield. The assessment of variation in agronomic traits contributing towards drought escaping at these stages is of vital importance. This study was conducted during 2014 and 2015 cropping seasons using a randomized complete block design with three replications to evaluate 12 sorghum hybrids (one standard check) for their better performance under moisture stress conditions at Abergelle Agricultural Research Center on station. The data of 9 different agronomic traits were subjected to combined analysis of variance, estimation of genetic variability and heritability. Data was analyzed for variance for number of seeds per panicle, panicle length, plant height, days to flowering and maturity, 1000 seed weight, grain yield, biomass yield and harvest index under moisture stress conditions. The combined analysis of variance result for grain yield of the hybrids evaluated over seasons was highly significant at p< 0.001. Relatively high magnitude of phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variations (>20%) for grain yield, biomass yield and harvest index as well as high heritability (>80%) for biomass yield were recorded. Generally, the present study entails the presence of significant variations among sorghum hybrids. Therefore, the hybrid sorghum genotypes Enforce (3263 kg ha

Sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) known as queen of oil seed crops is mainly grown for its oil of local consumption, sources of income and great contribution for the national economy of Ethiopia. However, there is a low productivity and production due to environments, genotypes, interaction and management variation. Four sesame genotypes were evaluated for their interactions with environments and seed yield stability analysis at three environments during the 2015 main cropping season. The objectives of the study were to estimate the magnitude and nature of GEI and to identify stable and/or high yielding white seeded sesame genotypes in Abergelle Agricultural Research Center mandate areas, Northern Ethiopia. The study was conducted using a randomized complete block design with three replications at each environment. The combined analysis of variance revealed highly significant (P≤0.01) environment (E), genotype (G) and genotype × environment interaction (GEI). Environment explained 79.84% of the total (G + E +GE) variation, whereas G and GE explained 17.21 and 2.95% of the total variation, respectively. The magnitude of the environment was 4.6 times greater than the genotype, implying that most of the variation in seed yield was due to the environment. The significant genotype by environment interaction effects were further partitioned into two significant interaction principal components using the genotype main effect plus genotype x environment interaction (GGE) biplots model. The first two principal components for seed yield stability of the GGE biplot analysis explained 96.81% of the total variation caused by G+GE of PC1 and PC2 accounted for 90.88 and 5.93% sum of squares, respectively, while 3.19% was attributed to noise. Thus, model diagnosis (fitting) showed that the first two PCs were significant and can be taken to interpret this data. The which-won-where biplot identified one winning genotype in one mega environment. The winning genotype across locations was Humera-1. Thus, the GGE (genotype and genotype by environment interaction) biplot analysis indicated that Humera-1 was considered as the most desirable and stable one's, therefore, can be recommended for wider cultivation due to better seed yield and stability performance across the test environments in the dry lowland areas of Southeast and Central zones of Tigray region, Northern Ethiopia.