Abstract

Girma Abera and Dereje Haile

Anchote is an indigenous root crop that is commonly produced by Oromo Nation in Ethiopia. Its production extension to the Southern Nations Nationalities Peoples (SNNP) Regional State may be useful in contributing to food security in the region. Traditionally, farmers use in-situ stored Anchote tuber with the hypothesis of nutrient concentrateon increase over time. Thus, we tested farmers’ hypothesis through investigating yield and nutrient concentration of Anchote as affected by harvesting dates and in-situ storage (at 4, 7, 10, 13 and16th months) at Hawassa College of Agriculture Research Farm. Extending the harvesting dates and in-situ storage from 4 to 7th month significantly increased fresh and dry tuber yield by an average of 450%. The results confirmed that delayed harvesting dates and in-situ storage improved Anchote tuber nutrient concentrations, largely Ca and Fe. Remarkably, Anchote leaf and tuber tissues exhibited higher crude protein and nutrient contents than anticipated values for most root and tuber crops. Nutrient analyses revealed that Anchote tuber contains 19 g N, 122.6 g K, 7.4 g P, 5.1 g Ca and 316 mg Fe kg-1 of dry weight, suggesting that Anchote can contribute more nutrients than equal amount of vegetables and root crops. The results indicated that Anchote could be a healthy food crop that has enormous potential to fill food security gap besides providing essential mineral elements both in its tuber and leaf parts.