Genetic diversity of Tanzanian and Kenyan adapted landraces of cowpea, sorghum and pigeonpea
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Date
2016
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Sokoine University of Agriculture
Abstract
Improvement of cowpea, pigeonpea and sorghum can be enhanced by knowledge of
genetic diversity available between and within accessions. This variability is the
foundation of all three crop improvement programs. A total of 85 accessions as 22
cowpea, 32 pigeonpea and 31 sorghum from Tanzania and Kenya gene banks were used
for this study. Quantitative and qualitative traits such as, grain color, grain coverage, seed
shape, days to 50% flowering, plant height, days to 50% maturity and grain yield were
among the few traits used to assess the collected accessions. The main objective of the
study was to determine existing diversity of three food security crop accessions in
Tanzania. Different agro- morphological traits collected were analyzed using GENSTAT
15 and XLSTAT 2014 statistical packages to determine Phylogenetic relationship of the
three selected crops based on agro-morphological traits. Accessions were classified based
on their agro-morphological relationships using principal component analysis and unĀ
weighted pair-group average cluster analysis. Results showed a relatively high level of
genetic diversity between and within both accessions; levels of similarity differed for
qualitative and quantitative data for all three crops. Some quantitative agro-morphological
traits such as days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, seed width, pods per plant in
cowpea, grain weight per panicle, grain number per panicle, grain yield, number of nodal
tillers per plot in sorghum; days to maturity, plant height and raceme number per plant in
pigeonpea. For qualitative traits, raceme position for cowpea; grain color and bird attack
for sorghum; seed color pattern for pigeonpea were distinguished more efficiently
between and within the accessions to get superior materials for future use in breeding
programs. A few of the best materials selected were GBK 013187 (cowpea), TZA 2496
(pigeonpea) and TZA 3991 (sorghum). In a number of groups the accessions were
different from other accessions in some important traits. Implications of the variability in
pigeonpea, cowpea and sorghum improvement are discussed.
Description
Dissertation
Keywords
Genetic diversity, Crop improvement, Cowpea-sorghum, Pigeonpea