: Barley is one of the most important traditional crops in Ethiopia which is a major center of genetic diversity for barley along
with other crop plants species. Two hundred seven accessions and 18 released varieties were laid down in 15*15 simple lattice design
and planted in 2008 main cropping season (June to Nov) at Kokate. The objective of the study was to conduct the morphological
characterization and to determine the nature and degree of variability in morpho- agronomic traits of landrace of barley in southern
Ethiopia collections. The proportion of genotypes in kernel row number were 26.6, 15.3, 16.6, 41.5 and 0.4% for two rowed with lateral
floret, two rowed deficient, irregular, six rowed with awns on lateral floret and branched heads, respectively. Genotypes with white
kernel color (57.5%) and amber (normal) lemma color (50%) were dominant. The highest diversity indices pooled over the characters
within zones/ special woredas were recorded for accessions sampled from Dawro (H’= 0.75 ± 0.05) followed by Sheka (H’=0.74 ± 0.07),
Gamgofa (H’ =0.70 ± 0.05) and Keffa (H’= 0.70 ± 0.08). These zones can be used for in situ conservation for barley landraces as
representatives of southern Ethiopian high lands. The barley genotypes were clustered into five distinct groups of various sizes based on
8 qualitative traits. The estimates of diversity index (H’) for each trait in each of the three altitudinal class has shown that polymorphism
was common in varying degrees for most traits, implying the existence of a wide range of variation in the materials.