Multivariate Analyses of Phenotypic Diversity of Bread Wheat (Triticumaestivum L.) in the Highlands of Northern Ethiopia

Abstract

An assessment of genetic variation within diverse germplasm is needed to allow more efficient genetic improvement. Forty-nine bread wheat genotypes were evaluated for 11 traits in simple lattice design at two locations to determine the extent of genetic diversity among the genotypes for grain yield and other agronomic traits. Mean squares of the traits studied showed statistically significant differences among the genotypes listed (P<0.01), indicating the presence of adequate variability. In the PC analysis, five PCAs explained 80.4% of total variability residing in the bread wheat genotypes. The first principal component, followed by the second, had the largest variance, and consequently explained much of the variability in the bread wheat genotypes. The traits which were important in these PCAs, plant height, grain yield, number of productive tillers, days to heading, spike length and number of spikelets per spike are the important traits in differentiating the genotypes. Average linkage cluster analysis classified the 49 genotypes into six clusters. Higher inter-cluster distance was exhibited between cluster I and III (D2=25.79 ** ) followed by cluster II and IV (D2=22.82), and cluster II and III (D2=22.75), indicating wider genetic diversity among these clusters. Thus, future crossing program between members of cluster I with cluster III, and cluster II with III and IV could possibly result in heterosis in the F1, and a great deal of variability in the F2 generations.

Agro-morphological diversity in promising wheat genotypes grown under restricted irrigated condition

“…Likewise, days to heading, days to maturity, plant height, the number of spikelets per ear, ear length and relative water content in the third PC; sedimentation value in the fourth PC; biological yield per plant in the fifth PC; ear weight and chlorophyll content in the sixth PC and peduncle length, 1000-grain weight and canopy temperature in the seventh PC were the major contributing traits in each principal components. Similar findings of grouping wheat genotypes by the principal component analysis were reported byFellahi et al (2013), Getachew et al (2017 andSharma et al (2018).From the present investigation, it can be concluded that considerable genetic variation among genotypes for all the studied traits were present. For restricted irrigated conditions, the promising high yielding genotypes viz., NIAW 3386, MACS 6719 and MACS 4075 were https://doi.org/10.37992/2021.1203.090…”