Tef Taxonomy, Origin, Distribution and Genetic Resources

Jifar, Habte; Chanyalew, Solomon; Tadele, Zerihun; Assefa, Kebebew (2022). Tef Taxonomy, Origin, Distribution and Genetic Resources. In: Kebebew, Assefa; Chanyalew,, Solomon; Girma, Dejene; Tadele, Zerihun (eds.) Principles and Practices of Tef Improvement (pp. 27-48). Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Agricultural Transformation Institute

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The tef crop has both its center of origin and diversity in Ethiopia. Tef is the product of nature and nurture, and it has co-evolved with Ethiopians in the course of cultivation by the framers over the millennia. The diverse agro-ecologies and sociocultural conditions of the country have also endowed the country with a huge wealth of genetic diversity in phenologic, agronomic and morphological traits as well as traits associated to nutrition and biotic and abiotic stress tolerances. Such diversity offers opportunities to develop suitable varieties for diverse cropping systems, agroecologies and utilization aspects.
However, the physiological mechanisms and the traits and genes associated with the nutritional values and stress tolerances are little known. Collection, characterization, evaluation and conservation of the tef genetic resources have not yet been comprehensively and systematically done. Because of this, some duplication of tef accessions are expected in the Ethiopian gene bank holdings. Hence, rigorous conservation, characterization, and utilization of these resources including its wild relatives are essential for sustainable improvement of the crop.
Various studies based on morphological, cytological, biochemical and molecular markers suggested E. pilosa as the closest relatives to tef. The diploid ancestors of tef are, however, not yet known since E. pilosa is a tetraploid species like tef. Hence, the identification of the diploid progenitors of tef based on genome analysis as well as biochemical and molecular markers is far more than scientific curiosity since the knowledge of the diploid progenitors would open an avenue to resynthesize tef and create de novo variability including important traits like lodging tolerance.
Overall, the most important areas of future research emphasis include: 1) Systematic and comprehensive collections of germplasm including wild relatives so as to mitigate the representation gaps and capture the evolutionary dynamics; 2) Extensive evaluation and characterization of the tef genetic resources including the wild relatives using both phenotypic, biochemical and molecular markers; 3) Establishment of more refined and representative set of “core tef germplasm” and minimization of duplications of germplasm accessions in gene-banks; and 4) Mining of the tef genetic resources with respect to the identification of noble genes and traits associated with abiotic and biotic stress tolerance, quality and metabolites.

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