Abstract:
About fifty eight bread and 34 durum wheat varieties have been released in Ethiopia until
2012. However, enough work has not been done on the genetic relationships among these
varieties. Hence, the present study was initiated with the aims of determining the genetic
variation among wheat varieties released in the country and to assess the achievement of
wheat variety development program of Ethiopia in terms of developing genetically diverse
varieties. Forty one bread and twenty four durum wheat varieties obtained from different
breeding centers were used for this study. DNA was extracted using the CTAB method (Doyle
& Doyle, 1990). PCR was conducted using 15 SSR markers, and allele separation was
performed using polyacrylamide gel on vertical electrophoresis apparatus. The result showed
that the number of alleles per locus ranged from 4-16 and 2-15 for bread and durum wheat
varieties, respectively. PIC ranged from 0.16 (Xgwm257) to 0.83 (Xgwm136) with an average
of 0.56 among bread wheat and from 0.36 (Xgwm257) to 0.89 (Xgwm292) with an average of
0.63 among durum wheat varieties. The genetic distance between Galema and K-6290 bulk
was the lowest (0.07) whereas that of Shina and Bobicho was the highest (0.12) among bread
wheat varieties. On the other hand, the genetic distance between Werer and Gerardo was the
lowest (0.07) whereas that of Selam and Candidate#4 was the highest (0.14) among durum
wheat varieties. Both bread wheat varieties with the lowest genetic distance were obtained
from KARC and that of durum wheat were obtained from DZARC. The most distant bread
wheat variety (Shina) and durum wheat variety (Selam) were obtained from ADARC. There
were three main clusters for both bread and durum wheat varieties. Based on the pair wise
comparison in the distance matrix all of bread as well as durum wheat varieties shared more
than 88% of their marker alleles, which indicates low genetic diversity among the varieties. It
could be concluded that the wheat breeding program in Ethiopia was unable to produce more
diverse varieties with a wide genetic base. Therefore, it is recommended that future breeding
programs should focus on widening the genetic base of the country’s commercial varieties to
minimize risks emanating from biotic and abiotic production constraints.
