Grain yield variation and association of major traits in brown-seeded genotypes of tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.)Trotter]

Jifar, Habte; Assefa, Kebebew; Tadele, Zerihun (2015). Grain yield variation and association of major traits in brown-seeded genotypes of tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.)Trotter]. Agriculture & Food Security, 4(1) BioMed Central 10.1186/s40066-015-0027-3

Preview

Text AgricFoodSecurity_4_7.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons: Attribution (CC-BY). Download (838kB) | Preview

Background
Tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter] is the major cereal crop of Ethiopia where it is annually cultivated on more than three million hectares of land by over six million small-scale farmers. It is broadly grouped into white and brown-seeded type depending on grain color, although some intermediate color grains also exist. Earlier breeding experiments focused on white-seeded tef, and a number of improved varieties were released to the farming community. Thirty-six brown-seeded tef genotypes were evaluated using a 6 × 6 simple lattice design at three locations in the central highlands of Ethiopia to assess the productivity, heritability, and association among major pheno-morphic traits.
Results
The mean square due to genotypes, locations, and genotype by locations were significant (P < 0.01) for all traits studied. Genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variations ranged from 2.5 to 20.3 % and from 4.3 to 21.7 %, respectively. Grain yield showed significant (P < 0.01) genotypic correlation with shoot biomass and harvest index, while it had highly significant (P < 0.01) phenotypic correlation with all the traits evaluated. Besides, association of lodging index with biomass and grain yield was negative and significant at phenotypic level while it was not significant at genotypic level. Cluster analysis grouped the 36 test genotypes into seven distinct classes. Furthermore, the first three principal components with eigenvalues greater than unity extracted 78.3 % of the total variation.
Conclusion
The current study, generally, revealed the identification of genotypes with superior grain yield and other desirable traits for further evaluation and eventual release to the farming community.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

396 since deposited on 23 Jun 2015
16 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item