Ethiopia is known as the secondary center of diversity for chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.). Plant breeders primarily interested in utilizing the available germplasm for improving phosphorus uptake and use efficiency have no background information on the genetic diversity for this attribute. A field study involving 155 chickpea genotypes was undertaken at Ambo and Ginchi, Ethiopia, in 2009/2010 to characterize the genotypes for nutrient uptake and use efficiencies. Cluster analysis grouped the genotypes into five clusters in the absence and six clusters in the presence of phosphorus. The higher number of clusters when the crop was grown with phosphorus may be a manifestation of more genetic diversity due to the application of phosphorus. The Mahalanobis’s D2 statistics mostly showed significant genetic distances between clusters constituted local landraces on the one hand and introduced genotypes on the other. This indicated that there were distinct multivariate differences between landraces and introduced genotypes. No clear interrelationship was observed between the origins of the landraces within Ethiopia and the pattern of genetic diversity. Different characters had different contribution to the total differentiation of the populations in all the cases. The result of this study suggests existence of adequate genetic diversity for attributes of phosphorus uptake and use efficiency in these chickpea genotypes, which should be exploited in future breeding.

Wheat CRP FP4 - Sustainable intensification of wheat - based cropping systems

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Imtiaz, M. : No CIMMYT Affiliation