Genetic Distance of Selected Durum Wheat (<i>Triticum turgidum</i> L.) Landraces in Ethiopia

Wheat especially, durum wheat is one of the most important cereal crops and there is huge diversity of this in Ethiopia. Knowledge on identification of important characters and their interrelationship is a prerequisite for the development of high yielding. The present study was carried out to cluster selected durum wheat landraces. Forty-nine durum wheat genotypes were studied for 20 traits at Sinana and Selka Ethiopia locations using simple lattice design. The experiment was conducted during 2018/19 main season under rained condition. The studied traits were analyzed and grouped into ten clusters and the genotypes maintained under different groups had specific characters that contributed durum wheat variation. On average D<sup>2</sup> values accessions Obsa had the maximum value (16.1) while, Acc7210 had minimum value (2.2) and thus found to be the minimum divergent. Among the clustered groups, highest intra cluster distance was observed in cluster IV, VI, VII, VIII and IX (D<sup>2</sup> = 6.4). The highest inter cluster distance was observed between cluster V and VI (D<sup>2</sup> = 774.3), indicating there is divergence among clustered groups. The principal component analysis showed about 74.22% of the total variation explained by the first six principal components with eigenvalues greater than unity among 49 durum wheat accessions evaluated for 20 traits. The first principal component accounted for about 20.18% of the total variation. DH, PLH, GY, GPC, KPS and HI had high contribution effect to PC 1. This study provides further insights into population structure and genetic relationships in a diverse set of durum wheat germplasm, which could be further used in wheat breeding programs.