Genome wide association study to identify the genetic base of smallholder farmer preferences of durum wheat traits

The study was conducted during the 2012 wheat growing season in two locations in the Ethiopian highlands. The first location was in the Geregera area, in the village of Workaye, Meket district (Amhara region, 11◦40′N/38◦52′E, WGS84). The second location was in the Hagreselam district, in the village of Melfa (Tigray region, 13◦39′N/39◦10′E, WGS84). In each location, 30 smallholder farmers growing wheat were selected on a voluntary basis, but keeping a 50:50 gender representation Farmers were asked to list the traits they used to evaluate wheat varieties, hereafter termed farmer traits (FT), and these were ranked by importance. Technicians collected 10 metrics traits on these sites and farmers provided a score for their overall plot evaluation. The genetic material here analyzed is a diversity panel comprising 400 Ethiopian wheat accessions conserved ex situ at the Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute. DNA extraction for genotyping was conducted in Ethiopia, at the Mekelle University Molecular and Biotechnology Laboratory (Mekelle,Tigray).