Multivariate Analysis of Morphological variation in Palmyrah (Borassus flabellifer L.) germplasm

Author: Vasanth S., Premalakshmi V., Ganga M., Manivannan M.I., Juliet Hepziba S. and Sivaprakash M.

Download PDF

Abstract

Determination of elite genotypes in crop improvement program is achieved by using the biometrical techniques that assess the crop performance. Up to now, no research work has been done on morphological characterization of palmyrah. This made us to select the present work as our study. In the present study, 21 Palmyrah germplasms were evaluated for 13 morphological traits through Principal Component analysis to evaluate the genetic divergence, pattern of variation present in the germplasms and relationship among the tested individuals and their correlation analysis. The study was conducted at Agricultural College & Research Institute, Killikulam in 2023. The first four principal components exhibited desired eigenvalues and explicated 72.97% of the total variability in the observed traits. From the Biplot, the traits viz., stem girth at the ground level, girth of trunk at one meter height from ground level, crown length, number of Inflorescences per tree, number of leaf segments per tree, inflorescences length, plant height, petiole length, number of scars between 50cm in the trunk contributed maximum diversity. The genotypes ACC5EBKKM, ACC1ODKKM and ACC3ODKKM showed high positive values. The Cluster analysis displayed four major groups viz., I, II, III and IV consisting of 8, 1, 9 and 3 accessions, respectively. The accessions from the diverse clusters can be exploited for breeding program in Palmyrah.

Keywords

Palmyrah, Principal Component analysis (PCA), genetic divergence, Biplot, Cluster analysis

Conclusion

Multivariate analysis was performed in Palmyrah germplasms to study the morphological variation among them to find out the best genotypes. The STAR (Computer software) software was used for this analysis. Totally 21 germplasms were evaluated in this analysis. From the results, out of 21 germplasms three accessions viz., ACC5EBKKM, ACC1ODKKM and ACC3ODKKM had more diversity. Among the morphological traits, stem girth at the ground level, girth of trunk at one meter height from the ground level, inflorescences length, crown length, plant height, number of scars between 50cm in the trunk, number of leaf segments per leaves showed significant variations. In cluster analysis, there are four clusters. Here, the value of cophenetic correlation coefficient was 0.634 that showed the high efficiency of the clustering pattern.

References

-

How to cite this article

Vasanth S., Premalakshmi V., Ganga M., Manivannan M.I., Juliet Hepziba S. and Sivaprakash M. (2023). Multivariate Analysis of Morphological variation in Palmyrah (Borassus flabellifer L.) germplasm. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 15(5a): 353-361.