The Dynamics of on-farm Management of Sorghum in Ethiopia: Implication for the Conservation and Improvement of Plant Genetic Resources

Abstract

On-farm conservation of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture has received strong support worldwide in recent years. It has been justified on appealing assumptions: it complements ex situ conservation, allows co-evolutionary interaction of host-pathogens and crop-weed complexes, and involves local knowledge systems. This article illustrates how on-farm conservation being set for its sake is extremely difficult under farmers' dynamic management of plant genetic resources based on sorghum. The dynamics of their management could be explained by continued introduction, displacement, loss and maintenance of aboriginal landraces that have distinct functional attributes, patch-occupancy and relative abundance profiles. Such management and hence the dynamic landrace demography has largely been triggered by coevolving biophysical stresses, spatial and seasonal variations. The best viable alternative to support farmers' management of genetic resources is to link conservation to crop improvement both to enhance onfarm genetic diversity and make the biophysical environment a comfortable home for the plant genotypes.

Geographic patterns of phenotypic diversity in sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) landraces from North Eastern Ethiopia

“…The analyses for quantitative traits revealed wide variability among the landraces. Previous studies (Teshome et al, 1999;Seboka and van Hintum, 2006;Shewayrga et al, 2008) reported that farmers purposely maintain and grow many landraces to address various needs as well as risk aversion strategy, and the landraces vary in maturity, yield potential, stress tolerance, end-use quality and other agronomic traits. Diversity studies in NE Ethiopia have also shown high diversity for other crop landraces including tef (Assefa et al, 2001;Kefyalew et al, 2000), barley (Abebe et al, 2010;Mekonnon et al, 2015) and durum wheat (Eticha et al, 2005;Mengistu et al, 2015).…”

“…The high lysine sorghum lines came from Welo collections (Singh and Axtell, 1973). The majority of sorghum production in the country in general and NE Ethiopia in particular depends on landraces (Gebrekidan, 1973;Worede, 1992;Seboka and van Hintum, 2006;Shewayrga et al, 2008). These landraces are good sources of genepool for sorghum improvement program to develop high yielding and farmer preferred improved varieties.…”

DNA markers reveal genetic structure and localized diversity of Ethiopian sorghum landraces

“…Consequently, farmers of the area have been maintaining invaluable diversity for generations. It has been documented that farmers make conscious decision and management efforts based on agro-ecological condition and end-use to maintain landraces diversity (Teshome et al, 1997;Seboka and van Hintum, 2006). Preferences of different landraces for various end-uses like sweet sorghum (juicy stalk), roasted grain (milky dough stage), local beverages (e.g.…”

“…The majority of sorghum production in the country in general and NE Ethiopia in particular depends on landraces (Gebrekidan, 1973;Worede, 1992;Teshome et al, 1997Teshome et al, , 1999Seboka and van Hintum, 2006;Shewayrga et al, 2008). The sorghum grain is mainly used for Injera, a fermented flat bread and staple Ethiopian dish.…”

“…However, the adoption of early maturing improved varieties had limited success since the varieties do not meet farmers' needs and selection criteria (Seboka and van Hintum, 2006). Utilization of local landraces in the breeding program is important to combine important features of such landraces to meet farmers' needs.…”