P3: Mining natural variation for improvement of Plectranthus edulis/yam: analysis of genetic diversity and selection on phenotypes and genes for yield, stress resistance and ecological adaptation

Description

After cereals and legumes root and tuber crops (RTC) are the third important group of food crops consumed as staple and co-staple food by more than 600 million people in the tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Asia, South and Central America (Chandra, 2006). RTCs dominate the food basket of many rural and urban communities of East African countries including Ethiopia. Other than major RTC species, there are many underutilized root and tuber crops (uRTC) playing a major role in the daily food basket of local people in Ethiopia, including Enset (Ensete ventricosum), Ethiopian Potato (Plectranthus edulis) and Anchote (Coccinia abyssinica). These uRTCs are highly championed for their versatility in production system, including adaptation to diverse agroecology serving diverse population at different seasons, adaption to low input marginal lands and nutritionally rich food sources per unit area. These merits are paramount to meet food and nutrition security in these challenging climate change times. Specially, uRTCs such as Ethiopian Potato (Plectranthus edulis) and yam are indigenous to the community and been utilized for millennia under different climate scenarios. The subsistence farmers which mostly use these crops as insurance crops against climate shocks have been selecting and preserving consequential traits of the crops for generations. Despite the impression that these crops are better tolerant to climate shocks, the recurrence and intensity of the shocks in the current years have created a lot of yield loss at minimum and genetic losses at large. Hence, maintaining the continuity of biodiversity rich farming systems and capitalizing on agrobiodiversity to improve food and nutrition security is an important pillar of sustainable development. Besides, mining the vast variation within this diverse gene pool for important traits such as yield, stress tolerance and adaptation is consequential.

The research objectives are: (i) Morpho-agronomic and genetic characterization and valorization of P. edulis/Anchote, (ii) Identify and map putative markers that are associated with yield, resistance, and adaptive traits, (ii) Landscape genomics and adaptive loci discovery in P. edulis/Anchote.

Involved persons

• Assist. Prof. Dr. Meseret Tessema Terfa
• Dejene Bekele Dibaba

Involved institutions

• School of Plant and Horticultural Sciences, College of Agriculture

Sponsors

Supported by the DAAD program Bilateral SDG Graduate Schools, funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)