Harnessing Genetic Variability for Barley ( Hordeum vulgare L.) Improvement: Insights From Yield‐Related and Phenological Trait Analysis

Barley is a staple food and plays a crucial role in the agricultural economy of the Ethiopian highlands. This research presents a comprehensive study on the genetic variability of barley genotypes, focusing on their yield‐related and phenological traits. During the 2022/2023 cropping season, a total of 313 barley genotypes were evaluated in four locations with an Augmented Randomized Complete Block Design (Augmented RCBD) with a single‐row 2 m 2 plot spaced 0.30 m apart over three blocks with replication of checks across all blocks. Principal component analysis (PCA) results indicated that 73.36% of the diversity came from the first four PCs. A very high to moderately high heritability in a broad sense ( H 2 b ), together with high to moderate genetic advance (GA) as percent of mean (GAM), was recorded for number of seeds per spike (NSPS) ( H 2 b = 81.02%; GAM = 51.60%), number of fertile tillers per plant (NFTPP) ( H 2 b = 69.82%; GAM = 30.55%), spike length (SL) ( H 2 b = 56.06%; GAM = 12.78), and thousand seeds weight (TSW) ( H 2 b = 66.22 %; GAM = 10.56%). The experimental materials were categorized into five clusters, where 87.22 % of the genotypes (273) fall in clusters I (163, 52.07%), II (78, 24.92%), and I (39, 12.46%). Genotypes T35 (3400), T73 (4305), T82 (4849), T123 (208857), T157 (219020), T316 (Aruso), T317 (Abdanie), T173 (219599), T176 (219772) from cluster II, and T47 (3611) of cluster V exhibited early days of heading (DH) and maturity with grain yield (GY) above the overall mean, making them suitable choice for areas facing challenges of sufficient amount of rainfall during cropping seasons. From the result of this investigation, breeder of interest should concentrate on traits that showed very high to moderately high heritability in a broad sense ( H 2 b ) together with high to moderate GAM that will be helpful to develop better genotypes for barley yield improvement.