Genetic Diversity Studies on Yield and Its Related Traits in Korarima (Aframomum Corrorima (Braun) Jansen)) Germplasms

Abstract

Genetic diversity studies was undertaken on 25 korarima germplasm collected from different agro ecological areas of Ethiopia to help in identifying elite germplasm accession with the greatest novelty at Jimma agricultural research center during the year of 2011 from August to December. The experiment was superimposed on those which were planted in a 5x5 simple lattice design with two replications and five accessions per incomplete block. Nine plants per plot were planted with a spacing of 1.8m both between rows and plants.  The germplasms were grown under Sesbania shade trees. Cluster analysis revealed that the 25 korarima germplasm were grouped in to four clusters. Distance among these clusters is significantly different for all the cluster combination. This indicates that there is an opportunity to bring about improvement through hybridization of germplasm  from different clusters and subsequent selection from the segregating generations. Principal component analysis indicated that six principal components explained about 80.51% of the total variation. Differentiation of germplasms into different cluster was because of cumulative effect of number of characters. The present study generally implied the presence of significant genetic variability among the tested genotypes. Thus, there is an excellent opportunity to bring about improvement through direct selection and hybridization which involves crossing of genotypes from different clusters.

Keywords: korarima (Aframomum corrorima), genetic diversity, genetic divergence, yield per plant.