Phenotypic Diversity in Ethiopian Chickpea (<i>Cicer arietinum</i> L.) Germplasm Accessions for Phosphorus Uptake and Use Efficiency

Abstract

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.