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Tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.)Trotter] is an ancient and major cereal crop in Ethiopia. Increasing tef yield
partly requires developing cultivars that are tolerant to low moisture supply. An experiment was carried
out using 18 tef genotypes grown during September to December, 2010, under two water supply
environments (stress during grain filling period, and non-stress) to identify genotypic variations in
drought tolerance indices and to investigate the relationships between grain yield and drought
tolerance indices in tef. Grain yield (gm-2) in respective stress (Ys) and non-stress (Yp) environments
ranged from 55 to 100 and 108 to 203, respectively. Tolerance index(TOL), stress susceptibility
index(SSI), stress tolerance index (STI), mean productivity (MP), geometric mean productivity (GMP),
and yield index (YI) ranged from 45 to 118, 0.82 to 1.24, 0.29 to 0.88, 84 to 149, 80 to 138, and 0.76 to
1.39, respectively. The correlations among Yp, Ys, MP, GMP, STI, and YI were positive (r > 0.80, p<0.01).
TOL was positively correlated with Yp (r= 0.91, p < 0.01), Ys(r= 0.48, p<0.05), and SSI(r= 0.72, p< 0.01).
This experiment suggests the possibility of using MP, GMP, STI and YI to improve Tef yield under
moderate stress and non-stress environments.