Genetic Variation in Long Maturing Sorghum [Sorghum Bicolor (L.) Moench] Landraces from Wello and Hararge Regions of Ethiopia
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Date
2005-06
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Addis Ababa Universty
Abstract
A study on the extent and pattem of genetic variability among long maturing sorghum genotypes
collected from Wello and Hararge areas of Ethiopia was conducted using morphological and
random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers. The field experiment was conducted at the
experimental field of Melkassa Agricultural Research Center and the molecular work was done at
Annauer Hanson Research Institute laboratory, AddisAbaba. A total of 27 morphological traits
were recorded from all 26 genotypes included in the study. RAPD marker analysis was conducted
on fourteen genotypes sub-sampled, from the different clusters generated using morphological
data. Distribution of various qualitative traits between regions and altitudes zones showed variation
from total absence to high level of variation from one morphological trait to the other. Mean
Shannon-Weaver diversity index (H) varied from 0.04 for grain plumpness to 0.99 for seed color
with over all mean of 0.60. Highest heritability and genetic advance was observed for leaf area,
plant height, number of primmy branches and number of seeds per head, indicating that selection
progress will be expected to be high for these traits. High heritability coupled with high expected
genetic gain may be due to high additive gene effects implying that selection applied for these
traits would lead to yield in an improvement in . the crop of study. Variation within accessions,
regions of origin and altitude classes accounted for a large portion of the total variation for
morphological data. But, Nie's diversity index from molecular marker data fails to reflect the
within accessions and region variation, rather it showed relatively higher variability between
populations and regions of origin. Cluster analysis from morphological data fail to group
genotypes either based on their region of origin or altitude classes while cluster from molecular
marker tend to arrange genotypes based on their regions of origin regardless of their altitude
classes.
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Sorghum Bicolor (L.) Moench