Morphological Diversity in Ethiopian Food Barley Landraces

An experiment was conducted at Holetta Agricultural Research Center with the objective of analysing genotypic diversity and interrelationship of characters in Ethiopian food barley (Hordium vulgare L.) landraces. One hundred two barley accessions and five checks were evaluated using augmented design plots consisting of four complete blocks in 2012 main cropping season. Ten quantitative and six qualitative characters were recorded. Analysis of variance showed significant difference (p<0.01) among accessions for plant height awn length peduncle extrusion thousand seed weight number of seeds per spike days to 50% flowering and days to maturity. Phenotypic correlation coefficient among characters showed that days to maturity had significant correlation with plant height (r=0.31) number of seeds per spike (r=0.30) days to 50% flowering (r=0.81) and peduncle length (r= -0.31). Altitude had positive and significant correlation with number of seed per spike (r=0.40) days to 50% flowering (r=0.47) and days to maturity (r=0.44). Cluster analysis grouped accessions in to five distinct classes with maximum number of accessions (44) in cluster I and minimum (2) in cluster V.