Clustering and principal component analysis of Barley (Hordeum volugare L.) Landraces for major morphological traits from North Western Ethiopia

Abstract

Huge collections of barley landrace genotypes in Ethiopian are not studied for the magnitude of genetic distances from each other. Though knowing the contribution of individual traits is crucial to focus on particular traits in cultivar development; the traits of these genotypes are not yet studied. Hence, this experiment was conducted on 48 barley landrace accessions which were not studied yet and four standard checks to estimate the magnitude of genetic diversity among the genotypes and to identify the major morphological traits contributing for the observed variations. The experiment was laid in Augmented Randomized Complete Block Design in six blocks at Adet in 2016/17 cropping season. The traits used for analysis were days to 50% heading, days to maturity, plant height, total number of tillers/plant, effective number of tillers/plant, number of spikes/plant, spike length, average number of grains/plant, biomass yield/ha, thousand grain weight/gm, grain yield tones/ha and harvest index tones/ha. The 52 genotypes were grouped into six clusters where 65.39% of the genotypes (34) fall in cluster I, III and IV. Early matured genotypes were grouped in cluster III, late matured in cluster VI and high yielding and tall genotypes in cluster IV. The highest intra cluster distance was 22.513 for cluster III and IV. The highest inter cluster distance was 57.00 between cluster V and IV. The fi rst three principal components contributed 74.20% of the total variations observed among the genotypes. Principal component one (Pc1) alone had contributed 49.96%.% of the total variations mainly due to grain yield, biomass yield, thousand grain weight and plant height in their respective order. Principal component two (Pc2) contributed 15.98% of the total variations mainly through total number of tillers per plant, number of effective tillers per plant and number of spikes per plant in their descending order. Principal component three (Pc3) had contributed 8.25% of the total variations through days to maturity, days to 50% heading and number of grains per plant. The result ensures the existence of high genetic divergence among the studied genotypes.