Barley is an important crop for the North Gondar highlands of Amhara Region, Ethiopia. To assess the characterization of barley landraces, 180 farmers from six villages in three districts of north Gondar zone were selected and surveyed. With regard to distribution status, most of the recorded landraces of barley were endangered. The main end uses of barley in the study area were kolo, beso, tela, injera, korefe, kita and kinche. According to farmers, the main criteria for selecting a variety was varietal characteristics mainly in the pre-harvest operation. The main characteristics for doing so are length of the spike, size of the seed, amount of seed per spike, ability to withstand disease, stand of the plant, tillering ability, number of rows, and germination ability. The majority of farmers renew the seed mostly between 1 and 3 years. The main reason for renewing are production decline, to prevent landraces from elimination and to increase productivity. The majority of the farmers stated that they do not store seeds for long period of time associated with the fact that they hardly produce any surplus that can be stored for longer years. In barley production, women have roles of joint decisions on number and types of varieties to grow, plot allocation, and storage. However, postharvest processing is mainly decided by women. Farmers have proverbs associated with how much women are important in saving and maintaining barley landraces and make ready when the need arises. Hence, barley genetic resources should be conserved before they are lost and farmers" variety selection criteria should be incorporated in the modern breeding of barley. The active involvement of women in the maintenance and improvement of landraces should not be undermined in the modern crop improvement programs.

Barley is one of the major cereal crops grown in Ethiopia. The diversity of barley landraces kept for generations in Ethiopia is nowadays subject to genetic erosion. This is true in North Gondar highlands of the country as well. This research was therefore initiated with the aim of studying the farm diversity status of barley landraces in Debark, Dabat and Wogera districts. A total of 180 randomly selected farmers from six villages were surveyed with a proportion of 30 farmers/village. Ecological models were employed to analyze the level of diversity. Genetic erosion models were employed to estimate the level of genetic erosion over a ten-year period of time. A total of 24 landraces were described by farmers of the studied sites. Of these, 18 of them are still under cultivation although their area coverage is declining from time to time. The landraces Abat gebs, Nech gebs and Tikur gebs were found to be the most common and widely grown. Debark district was found to have the highest richness (Margalef=2.45; Menhinick=1.43) followed by Wogera and Dabat districts. With regard to evenness as a measure of Shannon diversity index, Wogera district (E=0.85) showed the highest diversity followed by dabat (E=0.83) and debark (E=0.79). Simpson's diversity index (D) also revealed the abundance of Nech gebs (0.66), Abat gebs (0.6) and Tikur gebs (0.52). The landraces Demo kises, Goreneje, Chankirme, Gabieaswelik, Amedo and Gero tal were found to be out of production in the last ten years and probably eroded. Genetic erosion and genetic integrity over ten years (2006-2016) was found to be 25 and 75%, respectively. The name given to landraces studied was found to be associated with certain characteristics or situations. Thus, policy makers and researchers should give attention to conservation of landraces of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) for better use of genetic resources.

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Barley is an important crop for the North Gondar highlands of Amhara Region, Ethiopia. To assess the characterization of barley landraces, 180 farmers from six villages in three districts of north Gondar zone were selected and surveyed. With regard to distribution status, most of the recorded landraces of barley were endangered. The main end uses of barley in the study area were kolo, beso, tela, injera, korefe, kita and kinche. According to farmers, the main criteria for selecting a variety were varietal characteristics mainly in the pre-harvest operation. The main characteristics for doing so are length of the spike, size of the seed, amount of seed per spike, ability to withstand disease, stand of the plant, tillering ability, number of rows, and germination ability. The majority of farmers renew the seed mostly between 1 and 3 years. The main reasons for renewing are production decline, to prevent landraces from elimination and to increase productivity. The majority of the farmers stated that they do not store seeds for long period of time associated with the fact that they hardly produce any surplus that can be stored for longer years. In barley production, women have roles of joint decisions on number and types of varieties to grow, plot allocation, and storage. However, postharvest processing is mainly decided by women. Farmers have proverbs associated with how much women are important in saving and maintaining barley landraces and make ready when the need arises. Hence, barley genetic resources should be conserved before they are lost and farmers' variety selection criteria should be incorporated in the modern breeding of barley. The active involvement of women in the maintenance and improvement of landraces should not be undermined in the modern crop improvement programs.

No abstract