Abstract

One hundred and two barley accessions and five checks were evaluated using augmented design consisting of four complete blocks in 2012 main cropping season at holetta agricultural research center. Ten quantitative and six qualitative characters were recorded. Analysis of variance showed significant difference (p<0.01) among accessions for plant height, awn length, peduncle extrusion, thousand seed weight, number of seeds per spike, days to 50% flowering and days to maturity. Cluster analysis grouped accessions in to five distinct classes with maximum number of accessions (44) in cluster I and minimum (2) in cluster V. Principal component analysis showed that variances of 30, 17, 15 and 10% were extracted from the first four principal components, respectively, which contributed 72% of the total variation among accessions. Estimates of genetic diversity index based on qualitative characters showed high diversity index among characters at Arsi, Wellega and Wello, and diversity index increased in altitude between 2001 and 3000 m.a.s.l and decrease at altitude >3000. Phenotypic diversity was very high for kernel row number (H′=0.99), grain color (H′=0.90) and spike attitude (H′=0.85) and low for lemma color (H′=0.48). Days to flowering, days to maturity and numbers of seed per spike, from quantitative characters and kernel row number, grain color and spike attitude from qualitative characters were the most characters which contributed variances among accessions.

Key words: Cluster analysis, diversity index, principal component analysis, qualitative characters, quantitative characters.