Field experiments were conducted in Tahtay Maichew and Laelay Maichew in Central Zone of Tigray, Northern Ethiopia in 2017/18 to evaluate and select high yielding, best adaptive and farmers preferred Desi chickpea varieties through farmers’participatory approach.Grand mother trial was conducted in a Randomized complete block design with 4 replications. Moreover, mother trial was done on 4 farmers (unreplicated)for ranking of varieties by farmers. Researcher data on phenology, plant height, number of pods per plant, hundred seed weight and grain yield were collected. Besides, 100 farmers in the two districts evaluated and ranked the varieties based on four criterias. Analysis of variance result revealed that the varieties showed significant difference among themselves for their yield and yield components.Dimtu,Teketay and Dalota were found early maturing in Tahtay Maichew.At Laelay Maichew, however, Dimtu and Dalota took shorter days to mature.At both districts the highest pod load per plant and smallest seed weight was recorded on the local variety while Dimtu, Dalota and Teketay had bigger seed size. The highest grain yield was found from Dimtu (2462.5 kgha-1),Teketay (2172.9 kgha-1) and Dalota (2155 kgha-1) in Tahtay Maichew and Teketay (2804.6 kgha-1), Dalota (2629.10 kgha-1)and Dimtu (2523.80 kgha-1) in Laelay Maichew. Farmers in Tahtay Maichew preferred Dimtu (163.04%),Dalota (132%) and Teketay(124.72%) varieties while Teketay (148.15%),Dimtu (120.37%) and Dalota (92.59) were selected in Laelay Maichew district.Hence,considering the researcher data and farmers’preference,Dimtu and Dalota in Tahtay Maichew and Teketay and Dalota in Laelay Maichew should be demonestrated to chickpea farmers in the respective localities and similar agro ecologies.

Keywords: Participatory varietal selection; Desi chickpea varieties; Grandmother and mother trials ; Matrix ranking ; Central zone of Tigray