The particular characteristics of some of the Ethiopian mustard accessions available from seed banks could be used to increase the production and the diversity of products available to consumers and to improve their general quality. The objectives of this study were to determine the genetic variability for agro-morphological (days to first flowering: DFF and leaf pubescence: LP) and nutritional traits (total phenolic content: TPC) among accessions, and to evaluate the potential of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to predict these traits in Ethiopian mustard leaves. A great variation was found for the traits evaluated. The reference values were regressed against different spectral transformations by modified partial least-squares (MPLS) regression. The coefficients of determination in cross-validation (R²cv) shown by the equations for DFF, LP and TPC were 0.95, 0.63 and 0.99, respectively. The standard deviation to standard error of cross-validation ratio (RPD), were for these traits, as follows: DFF: 4.52, LP: 1.53 and, TPC: 24.50. These results show that the equations developed for DFF and TPC in Ethiopian mustard, can be predicted with sufficient accuracy for screening purposes and quality control, respectively. In addition, the LP equation can be used to identify those samples with "low", "medium" and "high" groups. From the study of the mean and deviation standard spectra, and regression vectors of MPLS models it can be concluded that some major cell components, highly participated in modelling the equations for these traits.
Keywords: Brassicaceae; flowering; near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS); pubescence leaf; total phenolic content.