Yield Potential and Variability of Teff (Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter) Germplasms under Intensive and Conventional Management Conditions

Muluken Bayable,Fekremariam Asaregew,Asaminew Tassew,Enyew Adgo,Nigussie Haregeweyn,Tsugiyuki Masunaga,Getachew Alemayehu,Atsushi Tsunekawa,Takayoshi Ishii,Wataru Tsuji,Mitsuru Tsubo

doi:10.3390/agronomy11020220

Abstract

Teff is the most strategic cereal crop grown from high rainfall to drought prone areas of Ethiopia, where it covers nearly 30% of the land allotted for cereals. However, its productivity remains very low due to lack of knowledge and research interventions. To investigate the grain yield potential, estimate the genetic parameters, and the diversity, a pot experiment with intensive management and a field experiment with conventional management at two contrasting locations for two seasons using the same 317 genotypes and additional 3 improved cultivars in the field experiment were carried out. The results showed highly significant variation among the genotypes for grain yield, biomass, harvest index, and phenological traits under both experiments. The best linear unbiased predictor (BLUP)-adjusted grain yield performance of the genotypes ranged from 4.2 to 8.8 g/plant in the intensive management and 1.8 to 4.3 g/plant in the field growing condition with conventional management. Coefficient of genetic variation, heritability, and expected genetic advance for grain yield were the highest in both experiments. Among the phenological traits, the grain filling period in the intensive growing condition exceptionally showed the highest genetic coefficient of variation and genetic advance. The high grain yield performance and wider range of the harvest index observed under the intensive management condition with moderate to high heritability signifies the genetic potential of teff for further improvement through trait recombination.

Highlights

IntroductionPartitioning of biomass to grain which is usually expressed as increased harvest index
The analysis of variance results in the intensive growing condition revealed a highly significant difference (p < 0.01) among the test genotypes for grain yield, biomass, harvest index, and all other yield-related traits considered in this study
Our results demonstrated a wide genotypic variability for dry above ground biomass production and straw yield of teff with high heritability and moderate genetic advance

Summary

Introduction

Partitioning of biomass to grain which is usually expressed as increased harvest index Such an improvement seems to have stagnated since the 1990s on major cereal crops [5,7,8,9,10] mainly due to the fact that attainable yield reached a plateau in favorable environments on the one hand and the challenging biotic and abiotic production factors are still threatening the agricultural system on the other hand. In the world’s leading rice producing countries, yield gain, which reached 36% during the 1980s has declined to 7% [12] These facts suggest that to further increase productivity, the biological yield potential ceiling needs to be raised, or mechanisms to enable crops to cope with unfavorable growing conditions need to be improved. Without another breakthrough, the task of ending world hunger remains daunting

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