Abstract
Tef is the foremost cereal crop largely produced and consumed mostly in Ethiopia. It is grown on more than 3.1 million hectares annually. However, it’s productivity relatively low (1.85 t/ha). On the other hand, it gained recently global popularity “Super grain” as healthy and performance food due to its gluten free especially for celiac disease, diabetic and gluten allergy people. It has also high mineral contents like iron for anemia, bone and heart health as well as brain function. Lodging is a major constraint which affect both yields and quality of the grain as well as the straw. This experiment was led to assess genetic variability between the lines relating to lodging and other yield related traits. A total of forty-nine recombinant inbred lines were tested for 16 traits using simple lattice design on two sites. All the traits measured over the sites displayed highly significant differences among the lines except fertile tiller per plant, while their environmental interaction effect also highly significant for most of the traits measured. Grain yield showed the highest phenotypic coefficients of variation (PCV) (26.36%) followed by above ground biomass (23.16%), while the remaining traits showed low ( 60%), whereas half of the remained traits showed low ( 17.02%) and least for number of branches per panicle (0.09%). From all the traits evaluated in this study, plant height, panicle length showed high H2 and aboveground biomass performs relatively high values of GCV, PCV and GAM. Therefore, these traits are important for selection and further improvements. This study revealed that four recombinant inbred lines had higher yield and low lodging index than local as well as standard checks.
Highlights
Tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter] belongs to the family Poaceae, subfamily Chloridoideae, genus Eragrostis with binomial nomenclature of Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter
For some traits like grain yield, harvest index, lodging index, days to heading and maturity lower mean values were recorded at Debre Zeit and higher values recorded at Holetta
In the case of remaining traits such as plant height, panicle length, culm length, second culm internode length, second culm internode diameter, number of fertile tillers, number of branches and number of spikelets per panicle the highest value recorded at Debre Zeit whereas the lowest value at Holetta
Summary
Tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter] belongs to the family Poaceae, subfamily Chloridoideae, genus Eragrostis with binomial nomenclature of Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter. It is an allotetraploid (2n=4X=40), self-pollinated with bisexual florets of chasmogamous pollination behavior, and C4 plant [1, 2]. Tef is the main cereal crop widely produced and consumed in Ethiopia and favored by millions of local smallholder farmers [7]. According to the Central Statistical Agency [8], the area covered by tef during the 2019/2020 cropping season was over 3.1 million hectares or 30% of the total area occupied by cereals in the country
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