Performance and Diversity of Ethiopian Core Tef Germplasm Under Seasonal Conditions

Abstract Tef is an indigenous and important food, feed, and cash crop for smallholder Ethiopian farmers. Information about the natural genetic variation of the crop would be useful for genetically improving it through breeding. Therefore, the current study was designed to determine the extent and pattern of genetic variability among selected tef core germplasm lines and released Varieties from Ethiopia, using morphological traits. A total of 81 tef genotypes were field- evaluated for 17 morphological traits using a 9 × 9 simple lattice designs at Debre Zeit during the 2021 main cropping season and off-season. Among the assessed traits, only a few showed significant differences among the genotypes. Specifically, these traits were thousand seed weight and fertile tiller number in the main season, and peduncle length and number of fertile tillers in the off-season. Cluster analysis grouped the 81 tef genotypes into four clusters, each consisting of 15 to 31 genotypes. Principal component analysis indicated that approximately 71% of the gross variance among the tested genotypes could be explained by six principal components with eigenvalues greater than one. In general, the study revealed highly significant genetic distances between clusters 1 and 2. This suggests that selecting tef materials from these clusters for a cross-breeding program would likely be beneficial.