Evaluation of phenotypic relationships of date palm cultivars at Melka Werer, Ethiopia

Abstract

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is one of the oldest fruit bearing perennial trees classified under the genus of Phoenix in Arecaceae (Palm) family. The natures of date palms with their long productivity have an indispensable socio-economicsignificance and contributions in agricultural sustainability. The date palm is a food and income source for societies particularly in the desert and also it has medicinal, cultural, ecological and environmental values. Date palms are dioecious with a wide range of phenotypic variations. Therefore, evaluation of date palm cultivars using morphological characters at regional as well as global level is critically necessary for sustainable utilization of itsgenetic resources as well as for genetic improvement and conservationprograms. The aim of this study is to assess the phylogenetic relationships of ate palms date palm cultivars cultivated at Melka Werer research centre. A total of 45 morphological traits were used to assess phylogenetic relationships of eleven date palm cultivars. All traits showed mean variations amongthe cultivars.Principal component analysis on the first component revealed 37% variation in vegetative and reproductive traits data combined together and 29% and 32% of variations was observed in separate vegetative and reproductive morphological traits data respectively. Among 45 morphological traits 43 traits exhibited significant differences at p <0.05 inanalysis of variance and also 23 traits showed significant variances at p <0.05 inhomogeneity of variance analysis among cultivars. Besides, dendrograms were constructed based on combined vegetative and reproductive traitsdataand in separatevegetative and reproductive traits data and showed the genetic relationships between date palm cultivars.Generally, this study clearly display the phenotypic variations between cultivars and also the resultis important as baseline for documenting and further agronomic traits studies of date palm cultivars particularly in Ethiopia.