Evaluation of Tef ( Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter) Somaclones for Drought Tolerance

Breeding for moisture stress tolerance by conventional methods is not satisfactory in view of current demand to increase crop productivity. Inducing somaclonal variation is a potential technique to obtain stress tolerant variants. The present study was conducted to evaluate the performance of tef somaclones (R1 generation) and their respective parental genotypes for drought tolerance. The materials used in this experiment were obtained from the R0 generation of previous in vitro culture experiment. Twelve seed derived somaclones; Melko 0, Melko 0.5, Melko 1, Melko 1.5, Gemechis 0, Gemechis 0.5, Gemechis 1, Gemechis 1.5, Pop12S20, Pop12S20.5, Pop12S21 and Pop12S21.5 and their respective parental genotypes (Melko, Gemechis and Pop12S2) were used under two set of experiments (i.e., under moisture stress and non-stress conditions) in pots under green house. The experiments were laid out in completely randomized design with three replications. Analysis of variance revealed that somaclones (R1 generation) and their parental genotypes showed highly significant (P ≤ 0.01) difference in all the measured traits under both moisture regimes. Comparisons were made between the somaclones and their parents under moisture stress and non-stress conditions for the measured traits. Under moisture stress condition superiority of the somaclones was observed except for number of spikelet/panicle and total number of tiller/plant. On the other hand, under non-stress condition better performance was observed from parental genotypes for number of spikelet/ panicle, panicle weight, panicle seed weight, plant weight, plant seed weight and grain yield. The results showed that all the somaclones and their parental genotypes were negatively affected by moisture stress for all studied parameters. However, somaclones were less affected by moisture stress as compared to the parental genotypes. Hence, in vitro culture induced somaclonal variation can effectively be used for selection and improvement of drought tolerant tef genotypes.