Phenotypic Diversity in Arabica Coffee Genotypes from Eastern Ethiopia

This study was conducted with objective to determine extent of phenotypic diversity in Arabica coffee accessions from Eastern Ethiopia. Treatments consisted of 49 coffee accessions. The accessions were field planted at Mechara Agricultural Research Center in July, 2005 using simple lattice design with two replications. Total of 15 quantitative characters were recorded using standard coffee descriptors. The collected data were subjected to SAS software for Analysis of variance. Cluster analysis was also done. Mean squares due to coffee accessions were highly significant (p<1%) for all quantitative characters studied except for number of internodes of main stem and average length of primary branch, indicating the presence of remarkable phenotypic variation among the coffee accessions studied. For stem characters, plant height varied from 94.00 to 165.40 cm; number of internodes of main stem ranged from 17.90 to 24.80 cm; internode length of main stem varied from 5.30 to 8.25 cm; diameter of main stem from 3.40 to 5.35 cm. For branch characters, number of primary branches ranged from 30.20 to 43.10; length of primary branch from 43.10 to 105.10 cm; numbers of internodes of primary branch 14 to 26.70; internode length of primary branch was from 3.20 to 5.73 cm; numbers of secondary branch varied from 41.10 to 133.20. For leaf characters, leaf length varied from 9.20 cm to 18.43 cm and with mean of 13.40 cm. Leaf width from 3.49 to 8.77 cm with mean vale of 6.24 cm. Average leaf area of all accessions was 57.96 with variation from 24.63 to 105.45 cm 2. Weight of hundred beans ranged from 11 g for five accessions (H-25/04, H-40/04, H-41/04 and H-618/ 98) to 16.5 for H03/04 with mean value of 13.53 g. Cluster analysis grouped the coffee accessions into five groups of different sizes, ranging from one entry in cluster IV and V to 34 in cluster I. Inter-cluster distances were highly significant (p=0.01) except between cluster I and II, indicating presence of considerable phenotypic diversity in coffee accessions from eastern Ethiopia. It is advisable to maintain and evaluate the coffee genotypes for disease resistance, moisture stress tolerance, yield and cup quality in future studies.