Genetic variability for growth and yield traits of Ethiopian highland barley landraces on acid soils, in the choke water shade, Ethiopia

Despite its importance for food security, economic stability, and cultural identity, barley production in Ethiopia is constrained with soil acidity affecting about 43% of the total arable land. A field experiment was conducted to explore acid soil-tolerant barley landraces in the highlands of Choke Water Shade, Ethiopia. In this experiment, 210 barley landraces were phenotyped for 14 traits. The experiment was laid out in a 21*10 alpha lattice design with two replications. The data was analyzed using SAS 9.4 version software. Barley landraces SGR94, WSH68, and WSH15 performed better with mean yields of 5.6, 5.4, and 5.2 ton ha⁻¹, respectively. The genotypic Coefficient of Variation (GCV) ranged from 7.29% for the effective tiller number plant⁻¹ (ETN) to 32.13% for kernel number spike⁻¹ (KN). The phenotypic Coefficient of Variation (PCV) ranged from 9.84% for plant height (PH) to 32.29% for KN. Moreover, most of the traits including days to 50% heading, days to physiological maturity (DM), KN, thousand seed weight, and harvest index showed high heritability with considerable genetic advances. The Principal Component Analysis revealed that the first four principal components elucidated 81.6% of the total variation to which KN, biomass, ETN, Yield, biomass production rate, DM, grain filing rate, and harvest index traits significantly contributed to the variation. The cluster analysis grouped the 210 barley genotypes into seven distinct classes consisting of 13 to 61 individuals. The genetic divergence among barley landraces and the variability obtained can be used in breeding programs to develop acid soil tolerant barley varieties.