Abstract:
This study was aimed at identifying the current physical land suitability for selected
perennial crops in Gumay woreda of Jimma zone, Southwest Ethiopia. Relevant land
quality (LQ) and land characteristics (LCs) data like climate, topography and soil has
been utilized for land suitability analysis. Consequently, through the querying analysis,
the suitability rating process was run for individual LCs and based on the maximum
limitation method. The overall suitability was assigned for specific land mapping units
with the integration of ArcGIS10.3. Accordingly, the results showed that out of the
40976ha, 23% of the land was highly suitable (S1); 21% moderately suitable (S2); 47%
marginally suitable and only 9% of the land was not appropriate (N) for guava
production. Similarly, 47% of the land was highly suitable, 27% moderately suitable, 6%
marginally suitable and 20% was not appropriate for mango growing. On the other
hand, only 1% of the area was highly suitable, 6% was marginally suitable and the
remaining 93% of the land were not suitable for growing avocado. Overall, more of the
twenty LMUs fall under highly, moderately and marginally suitable class for guava and
mango production and the reverse is true for avocado; 93% was not suitable and based
on the individual LCs, slope status (which is not assigned as S1) was found to be the most
severe limiting factor. So, based on the analysis, guava and mango cultivation is better
suited in the area whereas cultivation of avocado is not, because it needs more
treatments.
