Variability of Coffee (Coffeaarabica L.) Germplasm Collections Based on Morphological Quantitative Characters

Abstract

Ethiopia is the center of genetic diversity of Arabica coffee (Coffeaarabica L., Rubiaceae). In receipt of more information on genetic variability is a must for additional enhancement of coffee (Coffeaarabica L.). An experiment was carried out at Awada Agricultural Research Sub Center, Ethiopia, to study the amount of phenotypic diversity between southern coffee (Coffeaarabica L.) germplasm accessions on a quantitative character. Entirety 104 entries consisting of 100 accessions from southern parts of Ethiopia and four standard cultivars were evaluated using augmented design. The key goal of the study was to assessphenotypic and genotypic variances, the broad sense heritability, genetic advance and estimate the principal component among various quantitative characters. Data on 22 quantitative traits were recorded from five envoy trees per row for each accession. One hundred and four Arabica coffee accessions were grouped into four distinct groups by cluster analysis indicating a wide genetic diversity of coffee genotypes. Cluster I, II, III and IV contained 04 (3.85%), 29 (27.89%), 66 (63.46%) and 05 (4.81%) of the accessions, respectively. The X2 test show that inter cluster squared distances were significant at p<0.01 and p<0.05. Highest inter-cluster distance (D2) was found among cluster I and IV (D2 =102.61), even as the minimum inter-cluster distance (D2) was obtained between cluster II and III (13.26). First 8 principal components with Eigen values more than one were dependable for about 76.34% of the total variation among the germplasmaccessions. Normally, the present study revealed the existence of immense genetic variability among coffee germplasm for various important morphological traits. Consequently, there is a possibility to make use of these traits to expand genotypes that do superior than the existing varieties for the upcoming coffee enhancement plan.