The field experiment was conducted on twelve improved common bean varieties, to select the best adapted and high yielding variety(s) at mid-lowlands of Guji zone during 2019 main cropping season. The experiment was arranged in randomized complete block design. In one potential site, three farmers’ fields were purposively chosen. The varieties were evaluated for days to flowering and maturity, plant height, number of branches, number of pods, number of seeds, thousand seed weight and grain yield and farmers’ selection criteria such as plant establishment, lodging, earliness, synchrony to maturity, free of disease and insect pests, drought tolerance, shattering, seed size, seed color, market value and overall field performances. The result showed highly significant (P<0.01) differences among varieties for all studied parameters except number of primary branches per plant. The varieties Nasir, Hawassa-dume and Angar with 3.74 tha-1, 3.13 tha-1 and 3.05 tha-1 were found to be high in yield, respectively. However, varieties Ibado, Loko and KAT-B9 were the farmers most preferred varieties in terms of their phenotypic traits such as large seed size, uniformity red and red mottled colored seed, early maturity. Participatory Variety Selection (PVS) helped the farmers in selecting the variety that possesses customer preference on market specification. Therefore, the varieties Ibado (2.52 tha-1), Loko (2.53 tha-1) and KAT-B9 (2.13 tha-1) were suggested to the scaling-up trials as per their adaptability and farmers’ preferences.

Keywords: adaptability; farmers preferences; participatory evaluation; market value