Yared Semahegn Belete

Holetta Research Center, Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, P.O.Box 2003, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Author    Correspondence author
Plant Gene and Trait, 2017, Vol. 8, No. 1   doi: 10.5376/pgt.2017.08.0001
Received: 08 Nov., 2016    Accepted: 07 Dec., 2016    Published: 23 Jan., 2017

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Belete Y.S., 2017, Genetic variation in some agro-morphological characters among Ethiopian Safflower (Carthamus tinctorious) germplasm, Plant Gene and Trait, 8(1): 1-7 (doi: 10.5376/pgt.2017.08.0001)

Safflower (Carthamus tinctorious L.) is one of the oilseed crops grow in Ethiopia. It is a long-season crop, which can tolerate drought and heat stress, and can be cultivated where other oilseed crops fail to grow. Genetic variation in characters of interest is a prerequisite for any breeding programme. This study was undertaken to identify germplasm accessions with desirable agro-morphological characters from among the 36 accessions evaluated at two locations. The combined analysis of variance showed that accessions were significantly different in characters recorded. The maximum and minimum days to flowering were observed in accessions such as ACC.231421 (151 days) and ACC.231419 (144.5 days) respectively. Plant height showed variation between accessions, which ranged from 43.0 cm to 70.0 cm with a mean of 56.9 cm. Accessions such as ACC.205069 (70.0 cm) and ACC.241793 (43.0 cm) had the maximum and minimum height respectively. Accessions varied considerably in seed yield, which ranged between 39.5 kg/ha and 880.3 kg/ha with a mean of 395.4 kg/ha. The highest seed yield was observed in accession ACC.200487 (880.3 kg/ha). Days to flowering (58.7%) and seed yield (64.6%) had high broad sense heritability. High heritability along with high genetic advance as percent of mean was revealed to seed yield. Cluster analysis indicated that accessions were grouped into three major categories. As principal component analysis revealed, the first three principal components together explained 78.6% of the total variation. This study shows the genetic variation in agro-morphological characters of the accessions, which could be used for selection/breeding programme of safflower. Seed yield can be improved through early generation selection, but other characters should be improved through advanced generation selection.

Safflower; Cluster analysis; Principal component analysis; Germplasm; Agro-morphological characters