Genetic variability and correlation of agronomic and malt quality traits in Ethiopian sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] landraces at Sheraro, Northern Ethiopia

Abstract

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) is a major cereal crop, grown in a wide range of agro-ecology. However, in Ethiopia there are very few high yielding improved sorghum varieties for malting purpose. A field experiment was conducted at Sheraro, sub-site of Mytseberi Agricultural Research Center during the 2017 cropping season. The objectives of the study were to identify sorghum landraces with high grain yield, study phenotypic and genotypic variability and correlation among yield, yield components and malting quality-related traits. In this experiment, 34 landraces and two malt sorghum varieties were evaluated in alpha lattice (6x6) design with three replications. The analysis of variance revealed highly significant variations among landraces in all analyzed characteristics. Among the tested landraces, Gambella 1107 gave the highest grain yield (4.88 ton/ha) followed by varieties Debar (4.28 ton/ha) and Macia (4.03 ton/ha), while the lowest yielding sorghum landraces were ETSL 100575 (0.18 ton/ha), ETSL 100547 (0.28 ton/ha) and ETSL 100738 (0.30 ton/ha). High values for the phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) and genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) were recorded for grain yield, head length and plant height. High heritability and genetic advance as percent of mean (GAM%) was obtained for plant height, head length, head width, thousand kernel weight and grain yield. Grain yield had highly significant and positive correlations with head width, hectoliter weight and germination energy. The 36 genotypes were clustered into five groups. Cluster I contained the maximum (16) number of accessions and cluster IV contained the minimum (3) number of accessions.   Key words:  correlation, landraces, malt quality, sorghum and yield.