Abstract
Teff is an important food crop that serves to prepare Injera-flat-bread. It is cultivated worldwide and is particularly susceptible to lodging. A diverse collection of teff [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter] populations was characterized for a wide range of traits, ranging from agronomic to final Injera sensory parameters, under well-irrigated Mediterranean spring conditions. The populations tested were collected from single plants presenting lodging resistance at the site of collection and their traits were characterized herein. An early type of lodging was observed, which was most likely triggered by a fast and sharp inflorescence weight increase. Other populations were ‘strong’ enough to carry the inflorescence during most of the grain-filling period, up to a point where strong lodging occurred and plants where totally bent to the ground. Three mixed color seed populations were established from a single plant. These were separated into ‘white’ and ‘brown’ seeds and were characterized separately under field conditions. The newly ‘brown’ populations appear to be the result of a rather recent non-self (external) airborne fertilization from a dark pollen donor. Some of these hybrids were found to be promising in terms of Injera sensory traits. The population of these studies might serve as breeding material. Integration between a wide range of parameters and the correlations obtained between agronomic and sensory traits might improve our ability to breed towards a “real world” better end-product.
Highlights
Teff [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter], commonly referred to as teff, is an annual self-pollinated, allotetraploid (2n = 4x = 40) warm season crop belonging to the Poaceae family [1,2]
A single panicle was collected from these thirteen Teff plants for further proliferation and study
44A-163-B were ranked relatively high in grain yield (GY) and Harvest index (HI), and low in total dry matter (TDM), with the former showing a significantly higher GY compared to the latter (Table 3)
Summary
Teff breeding should target the improvement in the following traits—grain yield, shoot biomass, lodging resistance, grain size and color, grain coat properties, nitrogen-use efficiency, osmotic adjustment root depth, tolerance to drought, salinity, and acidity, nutritional values, physicochemical, and palatability [1]. Most striking, was the lodging resistance presented by these single plants under the prevailing environmental conditions, compared to the surrounding plants These plants, randomly distributed within the plot, were different from the common white cultivar in stem diameter, leaf size, phenology, and inflorescence coloration. From each of these plants a single panicle was collected for further characterization. The objective of this study was to characterize the relations between lodging and other agronomic and sensory traits in the newly discovered populations
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