Ethnobotanical study of edible oil crops as a companion of Sorghum bicolor L. Moench and biochemical genetic analysis of in situ and ex situ conserved Guizotia abyssinica (L.f .) Cass. germplasm from North Shewa and South Welo

South Wela and north Shewa are the center for the diversity of Sorghum bicolor. Sorghum is cultivated in close association with oil crops mainly because of their combined uses in the cultural feeding system of local people. The presence of multipurpose sorghum landraces in the area have played a significant role for oil crop species diversity and their in situ conservation, as each oil crop has its own unique domain in its combined use with sorghum. · The companionship of sorghum and oil crops is multidimensional, which includes multiple cropping practices at the field level, multi-component food values. Their companionship is deep rooted to the level of society's traditional beliefs and sacrifices and cultural life. Guizotia abyssinica and Sesamum indicum are the most important oil crops of the area with strongest companionship with sorghum both at the field level and home level. The stronger the companionship of a given oil crop with sorghum at home level, the stronger the companionship at field level too. This result is based upon (i) the interviews with local farmers (both males and females) with heterogeneous age groups, and (ii) field survey together with local farmers and the in situ team in order to collect data on the cropping patterns and degree of companionship of sorghum and edible oil crops. Different Agromorphological traits from six oil crops were analyzed for the purpose of obtaining the level of variability among populations of each oil crop and correlation between traits. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and correlation analysis were conducted for quantitative traits, while Shannon 's diversity index analysis was conducted for qualitative traits, to see the potential genetic diversity of these oil crops. Capsule length, number of capsules per plant and number of seeds per capsule are important for high yield in Sesamum indicum. Number of branches per plant and number of heads per plant are the main traits that determine yield in Guizotia abyssinica. In Carthamus tinctorius, number of capitulum per plant, which is a primary trait to determine yield, did not show significant correlation with other traits studied. In Brassica carinata, number of primary branches per plant, plant height and number of seeds per capsule show significant positive correlation between themselves implying that these traits might be important agronomic traits for high yield. Shannon diversity estimates revealed that more than 7 4% of the total variation is due to within populations or area, for all species analyzed. Multilocus enzyme electrophoresis (MLEE) was used to assess genetic variability in twenty in situ conserved populations and twenty ex situ conserved populations of Guizotia abyssinca. MLEE analysis at four enzyme loci scores 19 alleles. All 19 alleles were recorded in both in situ and ex situ populations. Dendrograms constructed based on Nei 's genetic distance values show that there is no clear differentiation between the two groups. All four loci were · polymorphic and characterized by significant heterozygote deficiency (P<0.001) and significant deviation from Hardy-weinberg equilibrium (P