GENETIC VARIABILITY AND ASSOCIATION OF TRAITS IN DROUGHT TOLERANT POTATO (Solanum tuberosum L.) GENOTYPES IN SIMADA DISTRICT, NORTH WESTERN ETHIOPIA

Abstract:

Development of drought tolerant potato varieties for moisture stress areas is one of the strategic orientation and research priorities of the Ethiopian Potato Research Program. Estimation of variability is the first step in the process of variety development. This research was conducted at Simada research site of Adet Agricultural Research Center, a satellite site for drought experiments, in 2016 main rain season to estimate genetic variability, correlation among traits and to determine genetic diversity among 105 potato genotypes that included five checks. The experiment was laid out in Augmented design and data were collected for 20 traits. The analysis of variance revealed the presence of highly significant (P