Principal Component Analysis of Morphological Traits in Thirty-Six Accessions of Amaranths (Amaranthus Spp.) Grown in a Rainfed under Mizanand Tepe Condtions, South West Ethiopia

Abstract

Amaranthus is one of the most dominantly consumed vegetable in the pastoralist area of  Ethiopia. However this crop has received less research attention and little or nothing has been done on extent variability. Hence, 36 accessions of Amaranthus spp. were evaluated in 6x6 simple lattices design at Tepi and Mizan experimental sites during 2012 cropping season under rain fed condition. The overall objective was to  assess the contribution of morphological traits to variability in some accessions of Amaranthus there by determine the extent of  accession near to each other in relation to genetic variability.  Variances component method was used to estimate genetic variation and relationship among traits was also estimated by using standard method. Analysis of variance revealed that there was a significant difference (p< 0.01) among  thirty six germplasm accessions for all the characters studied except for thousand seed weight which was non-significant (p>0.05). The principal components (PC) analyses indicated that most of the 80.75% of the variation were more explained by seven principle components (PC1, PC2, PC3, PC5_, PC6_, PC5 and PC5) from this the  major of 47.2% of the variation were elucidate by PC1 and  PC2. The overall study confirmed the presence of trait variability in amaranths germplasm accessions and this could be exploited in the genetic improvement of the crop through hybridization and selection

Keywords: Variation, principal component, Amaranthus, accessions.