373 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. M. Al-Khayri et al. (eds.), Advances in Plant Breeding Strategies: Cereals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23108-8_10 Chapter 10 Tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter] Breeding Solomon Chanyalew, Kebebew Assefa, and Zerihun Tadele Abstract Tef or teff [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter], a cereal crop which adapts to extreme climatic and soil conditions, is extensively cultivated in the Horn of Africa. It is also considered as nutritious and a life-style crop due to its richness in essential nutrients and health-related benefts. However, the productivity of the crop is extremely low due to little scientifc improvement made globally. It is, therefore, in the category of orphan crops. Together with all cereal crops, tef belongs to the Grass or Poaceae family. The improvement of tef focuses on selection and hybridization techniques. However, recently, molecular and high-throughput techniques have also been implemented to a limited scale. Forty-two tef varieties were approved for release by the Ethiopian National Variety Release Committee in the past four decades. Due to the adoption of improved varieties and technologies, the national average yield of tef has more than doubled over the last 20 years. This review describes the progress in tef breeding and variety development as well as dissemina- tion of the improved varieties to the farming community. Keywords Accessions · Breeding · Eragrostis tef · Hybridization · Molecular breeding · Mutation breeding · Tef varieties 10.1 Introduction Agriculture plays a key role in the economy of developing countries because a large number of their population engage in this sector. Smallholder farmers in these coun- tries cultivate both major and minor crops such as cereals, legumes, root crops and vegetables. Major crops which include wheat, maize and rice are extensively S. Chanyalew · K. Assefa Debre Zeit Agricultural Research Center, Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, Bishoftu, Ethiopia Z. Tadele (*) Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland e-mail: zerihun.tadele@ips.unibe.ch