The Diversity and Associated Yield Components of Enset (Ensete ventricosum) Based on its Agro-morphological Traits from Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

There are many enset clones in different agro-ecologies. Farmers classify their landraces and give them different names based on several attributes. In order to illustrate the existing diversity within and between enset cultivars, 122 named enset accessions from five different geographical zones of Southern Ethiopia namely, Sidama, Gamogofa, Dauro, Gurage and Wolita, were considered in this study. These landraces were maintained at Areka Agricultural Research Centre. Each landrace had four individual plants. Data were recorded based on eight quantitative agro-morphological traits. These traits were plant height, pseudostem height, leaf numbers, pseudostem circumference, granted corm, maturity period (years from planting till flowering), bulla and fibre yield. Based on the relative magnitude of Manhattan similarity matrix and dendrogram on hierarchal complete linkage cluster analysis, all 122 enset accessions were grouped into 11 clusters. The highest genetic diversity was revealed from enset accessions of Gamogofa and Gurage zones. Principal Component Analysis  showed that the first three principal components accounted for 77% of the total variation. Weight of corm granted, fibre yield, pseudo stem circumference, maturity period, leaf numbers and bulla yield were among the most important morphological descriptors which accounted for more than 50% of the variation expressed in this germplasm collection. The significant and positive correlation among yield component characters of enset was revealed but maturity period showed negative and highly significant correlation to enset yield at P>0.001.