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Performance of Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis L.) for Morphological and Economic Traits Under Different Ecologies of Ethiopia

Dejene Tadesse Banjaw*, Aynalem Gebre, Desta Fikadu

The experiment was conducted to assess the adaptability of Lemon balm in different ecologies of Ethiopia during 2017/2018 and also during the 2022/2023 cropping seasons. The RCBD design in four replications was used and two harvesting cycles were considered for evaluation of the performance of the lemon balm for agronomic and economic traits. Data on plant height, fresh leaf weight per plant, fresh stem weight per plant, fresh leaf-to-stem ratio, fresh leaf yield per hectare, and dry leaf yield per hectare were recorded and the recorded experimental data were statistically analyzed by Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) using SAS PROC GLM (2002) at P<0.05. Differences between means were assessed using the Least Significance Difference (LSD) test at P<0.05. During the 2017/18 cropping season, ANOVA showed lemon balm performance varied significantly due to the harvest cycle and location. The first harvest cycle was superior in all traits considered for evaluation compared to the second harvest cycle. At the Debrezeit testing location there were very highly significant (p<0.001) results for fresh leaf weight per plant, fresh stem weight per plant, fresh leaf yield per hectare, and dry leaf yield per hectare except fresh to stem ratio. Similarly, the harvest cycle and location exerted significant variation during the 2022/2023 cropping season. The first harvest cycle was significantly higher in all traits again, while the Manche experimental site was significantly higher in dry leaf yield per hectare (2.83 tons per hectare). Therefore, the results of the current experiment showed that lemon balm can be produced in Ethiopia at various locations similar to the current testing site and we recommend the production of the existing lemon balm for similar agro-ecologies.