Multivariate Analysis of Some Metric Traits in Durum Wheat (Triticum durum L.) Accessions

Abstract

Ethiopia is considered as one of the center of genetic diversity of durum wheat, with important sources of rust and drought resistance, water logging tolerance and early ripening. Up to now, slight works made on genetic diversity study in durum wheat accessions in Ethiopia. Therefore, diversity study in durum wheat accessions is helpful for genetic improvement. The experimental material consisted of sixty eight durum wheat accessions tested in an augmented block design at Kulumsa. The overall objective was to assess the genetic diversity of durum wheat accessions by cluster and principal component analysis. Analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among accessions for all traits. Cluster analysis revealed that the 64 genotypes and 4 checks were grouped into five clusters. The inter cluster distance revealed high significant differences among clusters which enhance to develop potential hetrotic groups up on crossing. Four principal components (PC1-PC4) exhibited eigen value greater than one and accounted 75.9% of the total variation. This exhibited significant variation for the characters studied suggesting that many opportunities exist for genetic improvement through selection.

Keywords: Accessions, Cluster, Hetrotic group, Principal component, genetic diversity