Evaluation of Genetic Variation in Ethiopian Malt Barley Cultivars Using Malt Quality-Linked Markers and Phenotypic Traits

Germplasm conservation and breeding programs can be enhanced by understanding the genetic diversity at molecular level. In Ethiopian malt barley cultivar, the pattern of genetic diversity at DNA level is poorly characterized. This study is aimed to evaluate the genetic diversity of 22 Ethiopian malt barley cultivars using malt quality linked markers, brewing and agro morphological traits. Twenty one SSR markers were used to analyze all accessions and total of 244 alleles were found with a mean of 8 alleles per locus. The analysis indicated the existence of high polymorphic information content ranging from 0.82 to 0.92 and the mean Shannon diversity index (I) was 1.95, indicating that they are highly informative markers. The result of molecular variance analysis pointed out that the highest variation was found among the cultivars (94%), indicating its importance to develop appropriate conservation strategy and parental selection for new competing barley variety development. The highest β-glucan content was recorded for IBon174/04(706±54), while the lowest β-glucan content was recorded for the cultivar Focus (231±54.5). The value of extract content is the highest for the cultivar Focus (81.8±0.8), while the low extract content was recorded for HB-1533(75.8±0.8). Agromorphological analysis also indicated the existence of phenotypic variation for dwarf plant development in Explorer (0.58±0.09m) and high seeds per spike for yield in Beka (31±1.3), Suba (29.7±1.3), and HB-52(30±1.3). Therefore, Ethiopian malt barley breeding and conservation can be enhanced and speedup by utilizing the information generated from the study.