Abstract:
Soybean is a multipurpose leguminous oil crop with high grain nutritional and
industrial value. However, the crop has a narrow genetic base in Ethiopia, which
makes it susceptible to different diseases, insects, and abiotic stresses. Therefore, the
research was initiated to evaluate genetic variability, and trait association, with one
hundred fifty soybean genotypes in a 10x15 alpha lattice design with two replications
at the Pawe Agricultural Research Center during the main cropping season of 2023.
Data analyses were don SAS 9.4 version software. The result of analysis of variance
revealed highly significant different (P<0.01) among genotypes for most studied traits
and significant different (P<0.05) among genotypes for number of branch per plant.
The result of phenotypic coefficient of variation values varied from 2.56% for protein
content to 51.84% for loading, while genotypic coefficient of variation values ranged
from 1.70% for protein content to 44.96% for lodging. High heritability coupled with
high genetic advance as percent of mean was recorded for days to flowering, number
of pods per plant, days to maturity, oil yield, biomass yield, number of seeds per pod,
grain yield, plant height, and hundred seed weight, indicating the possibility of
improving these traits through direct selection. Grain yield showed positive and
highly significant phenotypic and genotypic correlation coefficient with days to
flowering, days to maturity, plant height, pods per plant, seeds per plant, hundred
seed weight, and biomass yield. The divergence analysis grouped the 150 genotypes
into seven distinct clusters based on 19 traits. The maximum inter cluster distance
was observed from cluster VI and cluster VII (D
2
= 547.84) followed by cluster V and
cluster VI (D
2
=386.76). Largest cluster distance indicated that the existence of large
variability among the genotypes with in that cluster. The principal component
analysis revealed that the five PCA with Eigen values of greater than one accounted
for 69.27% of the total variation. Generally, the present study indicated existence of
reasonable variability among genotypes, and this variability shall be exploited for
future soybean improvement program.