Genetic diversity in Ethiopian Durum Wheat (Triticum turgidum var durum) inferred from phenotypic variations

Abstract

The valorization of genetic diversities of major crops like wheat may help substantially to feed the world Population. Durum wheat genotypes consisting of 265 farmers' varieties (FVs), which have been cultivated for many centuries in Ethiopia, as well as 24 improved varieties (IMVs) have been recently evaluated in northern Ethiopia. The evaluation has been carried out at two different locations for 2 consecutive years to verify the inherited diversity in FVs for important phenological and agronomic traits; with the intention to provide refined information to breeders and genebank managers. As a result of a careful evaluation, a very significant variation was observed between the FVs and IMVs. A large number of the former have demonstrated superior performance to the latter in terms of mean values of the major traits within the stipulated years and locations. The best performing FV has shown a gain of 20% grain yield over the best IMV. Multivariate analyses revealed that FVs displayed larger genetic diversity than in those IMVs. FVs could therefore be used as donor of useful alleles in durum wheat breeding for improvement of yield per se and other traits of agronomic and phenological importance. The identified stable superior FVs include: 8208, 226834A, 238567, 222426, 226282 could be best candidates for farmers in marginal environments. Genotypes that have shown stable performance for spatial variation such as 204493A, 214357 and 238567; and temporal variation such as 8208, 208479, 214357 and 226834A could be the best candidates for exploitation in future breeding programs.

A large nested association mapping population for breeding and quantitative trait locus mapping in Ethiopian durum wheat

“…Durum wheat germplasm is highly diverse (Kabbaj et al, 2017). In the Ethiopian highlands, where it has been cultivated by smallholder farmers for thousands of years, durum wheat has developed several traits of phenotypic (Mengistu et al, 2018) and molecular (Mengistu et al, 2016) uniqueness. In Ethiopia, durum wheat landraces -referred to here as farmer varieties (FVs)are cultivated on 70% of the total wheat area, which is estimated at 2 million hectares (Hammer and Teklu, 2008).…”

“…A NAM population can therefore play the double role of research tool and breeding tool. In the case of Ethiopian durum wheat, a large gap exists between the genetic makeup of local FVs and modern varieties (MVs) released for cultivation in the country as demonstrated by their genotypic (Kabbaj et al, 2017;Mengistu et al, 2016) and phenotypic diversity (Mengistu et al, 2018). The Ethiopian durum wheat allele pool is unique with respect to international breeding material, and its incorporation into breeding efforts could benefit both local and global farmers (Kidane et al, 2017b;Mancini et al, 2017).…”

Durum Wheat (Triticum durum Desf.): Origin, Cultivation and Potential Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…In order to conserve these resources, the Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute (EBI) has established a holding of over 7000 accessions collected from different parts of Ethiopia [34]. These collections have been extensively investigated for their morphological and molecular diversity by many researchers and useful traits were identified and are now utilized by breeders and plant genetic conservationists in Ethiopia and beyond [40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48]. In the past two decades, the acreage of traditional tetraploid wheat has drastically diminished due to displacement by improved bread wheat varieties, extensive cultivation of Tef and Kabuli chickpea, farmland fragmentation, policies favouring bread wheat and the absence of a strong seed supply system [49].…”

Screening of Diverse Ethiopian Durum Wheat Accessions for Aluminum Tolerance

“…Ethiopia has been considered as a center of diversity for durum germplasm and landraces grown by farmers are a potential source of agronomically important genes [22,23]. A 90 K single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) chip analysis supports the notion that durum wheat in Ethiopia is particularly diverse [24].…”