Morphological and farmers cognitive diversity of barley (Hordeum vulgare L. [Poaceae]) at Bale and North Shewa of Ethiopia

Abstract

Twenty two accessions of barley landrace/farmers' varieties collected from Bale and North Shewa in situ conservation zones were characterised using 18 qualitative and quantitative morphological traits. Phenotypic frequencies for individual qualitative characters across in situ conservation zones, districts, and strategic sites (localities) have shown mixed and some peculiar patterns. Varieties from Bale conservation zone are predominantly white-yellow seeded whereas varieties from North Shewa are purple-black seeded. White-yellow seeded varieties are more frequent in the lower altitude examined, and the purple-black seeded varieties are more frequent at the highest altitude (≥ 2650 ). While six row types occur at higher frequencies in almost all the sites in North Shewa, the irregular types are dominant at Bale. The highest frequency of six row types is found at an altitude ≥ 2650 , whereas the two rowed and irregular types are found below 2650 . Two row types occur at low frequency at both sites. At Bale, glume awn shorter than glume is the most frequent character whereas glume awn longer than glume is more frequent at North Shewa. Glume awn longer than glume appears to increase with increasing altitude. Caryopsis cover is relatively monomorphic with respect to distribution across zones. The covered types are most frequent in almost all altitudinal ranges. Estimates of diversity index (H′) for individual qualitative characters suggest that polymorphism is common in varying degrees for most characters, which indicates the existence of wide range of variation. On the basis of cross validation using discriminant function among the quantitative characters, the landrace varieties from North Shewa seem to be more diverse than the ones from Bale. From the results of multiple regression analysis, the zonal variation is significantly associated with all the quantitative morpho-agronomic characters except plant height. The great majority of the varieties from Bale were perfectly identified and named by farmers. The reliability analysis confirmed that there was a remarkable positive degree of consistency between farmers naming of landrace varieties.