Abstract:
Barley landraces are the major genetic resources of cultivated barley in Ethiopia. Lack of
adequate information on extent of landraces diversity hinders conservation efforts and proper
utilization of genetic resource. A field experiment was conducted in order to assess the extent of
genetic diversity of barley landraces collection from southern Ethiopia. A total of 105 genotypes were
evaluated during 2018 main cropping season using augmented design at Alarigata, substation of
Bonga Agricultural Research Center. Data were recorded for twelve quantitative and seven
qualitative characters. Analysis of variance indicated highly significant variation (p<0.01) among
105 genotypes for all traits except awn length. Genotypic coefficient of variations (GCV) varied from
4.36% for biological yield to 13.22% for number of fertile tillers per plant and phenotypic coefficient
of variations (PCV) varied from 6.40% for plant height to 16.27% for spike length. Estimate of broad
sense heritability varied from 38.75 % for spike length to 78.13 for grain yield. Estimates of genetic
advance as percent of mean ranged from 7.61% for plant height to 23.01% for number of fertile tillers
per plant. Phenotypic and genotypic correlation analysis indicated that grain yield had positive and
significant phenotypic and genotypic correlation with days to maturity, grain filling period, and plant
height, number of fertile tillers per plant, thousand seed weight, harvest index and biological yield.
Path analysis revealed that plant height, thousand seed weight and number of fertile tillers per plant
showed positive and highest direct effect on grain yield. Cluster analysis grouped 105 genotypes into
five groups and one genotype remains ungrouped. Principal component analysis revealed that the
variance of 31,15,12,10 and 9 % were extracted for first five PCs respectively, which contributed 78%
of total variation among genotypes. Estimate of Shannon -Weaver diversity index H’ varied from 0.09
for hoodedness to 0.97 for kernel row number. Pooled over all traits with in each zone, H’ value
ranged from 0.48 for Sidama to 0.69 for South Omo and individual trait showed different levels of
diversity across different zones. In general, the result indicated the existence of wider diversity among
the barley collection, showing opportunity to improve important traits of the crop and need to
conserve the diversity. As future line work further investigation with inclusion of informative
molecular markers and covering different producing area of the region will allow to provide the
complete picture of existing diversity.
