Genetic Affinity and Breeding Potential of Phenologic Traits of Acha (fonio) in Nigeria

Abstract

The evaluation of the phylogenetic diversity of Acha (Digitaria sp.) was carried out among thirty accessions collected from Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area (LGA) in Bauchi State; six LGAs of Plateau State and Jaba LGA of Kaduna State and assessed during the cropping seasons of 2012, 2013 and 2014 for their degree of relatedness. The randomized complete block design with three replications was employed for the morphological analyses. The phenotypic and genotypic characters for the different accessions revealed that the genotypes expressed variability in genetic diversity for the morphological traits. A high level of variability existed between the accessions with respect to plant height, stem girth, leaf length, leaf width, days to maturity and a 1000 seed weight. Principal component one (PC1) contributed 87.1%, 78.3 and 91.5% in 2012, 2013 and 2014 respectively of the total variation. Some of the accessions which were identified as Digitaria iburua, took the longest number of days to maturity and had the heaviest 1000 seed weight with an average at 0.72g. Those that were identified as Digitaria exilis, despite its early maturity date of an average of 132 days had an average 1000 seed weight of 0.62g. One of the accessions identified as D. barbinodis had the least number of days to maturity at 130 days and a mean 1000 seed weight of 0.51g. Correlation analyses revealed a highly significant and positive correlation between yield and the yield components. Dendrogram analyses across years show that two distinct clusters separated the accessions into two morphotypes: Digitaria iburua group and D. exilis group. D. barbinodis, a different species was found to be highly related to the D. exilis group. The traits in the 2012 planting season were separated between the 96.79 to 93.59%, this was observed to be between the 100 and 94.62% and, the 99 and 96% for 2013 and 2014 cropping seasons respectively, indicating that there were no traits that were 100% similar. The results study shows that the genotype had more variability in genetic diversity for plant height, leaf length, days to maturity and 1000 seed weight in the three-year field trials implying that selection for taller accessions, longer leaf length, wider stem girth and broader leaf width could lead to higher yields in Acha.