Evaluation of Coffee Genotypes to Coffee Thread Blight Disease in Southwestern Ethiopia

Abstract

Thread blight is one of the fungal pathogens that cause severe damage to Coffea arabica in Southwest Ethiopia. However, there are very few research findings on its management in Ethiopia. Therefore, the current work was designed with the objective to evaluate Coffea arabica genotypes for their reaction to the disease. For this purpose, a field experiment was conducted to evaluate the resistance of 126 C. arabica genotypes against the disease at Mettu, Ethiopia. The experiment was arranged in 8 x8 simple lattice designs with two replications. Out of 126 C. arabica genotypes tested, 14 ( 1 1 %) of them showed highly resistant reaction, while 28 genotypes (2 2 %) were moderately resistant. Additionally, 26, 29 and 12% of the genotypes were moderately susceptible, susceptible and highly susceptible to C. koleroga, respectively. The current study demonstrates the role of host resistance to manage the disease, and it could be considered as potential component in integrated management of the disease. Future research should be directed towards studying the resistance mechanisms of the accessions for possible resistance gene transfer to released coffee varieties.