Agronomy journal, Vol. 78 No. 5-6, 2016.
Original scientific paper
PRELIMINARY EVALUATION OF GRAIN AMARANTH (Amaranthus spp.) ACCESSIONS FOR DROUGHT TOLERANCE BY MULTIVARIATE TECHNIQUE
Ajayi E.O.
; Vegetable Improvement Programme, National Horticultural Research Institute, Ibadan, Nigeria
Sakariyamo O.S.
; Dept. of Plant Physiology and Crop Production, Federal University od Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria
Okeleye K.A.
; Dept. o Plant Physiology and Crop Production, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria
Ariyo O.J.
; Dept. of Plant Breeding and Seed Technology, Abeokuta, Nigeria
Abstract
The objectives of this experiment were to compare different drought tolerance indices for drought tolerance prediction and evaluate thirty accessions of grain amaranth (Amaranthus spp.) for drought tolerance using several drought tolerance indices. Seeds of thirty (30) accessions of grain amaranth collected from National Horticultural Research Institute (NIHORT), Ibadan were screened in 2011 at the screen house of NIHORT. Seeds were raised in nursery for three weeks and later transplanted into polyethylene bags. Water stress was imposed at 4, 6 and 8 weeks after transplanting (WAT) and the control was maintained at 100 % field capacity. The trial was a completely randomized design (CRD) laid out in a 4 × 30 factorial arrangement replicated three times. Agronomic data and drought tolerance indices were used to assess the performance of grain amaranth. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to establish significant effect (P ≤ 0.05; F-test) of the treatments on the parameters taken, significant means were separated using standard error of the difference of means in post ANOVA t-tests. Result of the experiment showed that grain amaranth stressed at 4 and 6 WAT died before reaching maturity, water stress significantly (P < 0.05) reduced plant height, number of leaves and branches of grain amaranth. Grain amaranth at field capacity produced significantly (P < 0.05) higher seed yield than those stressed at 8WAT (54 and 25 gplant-1 respectively). Seed yield had significant positive correlation with root length (r = 0.86**), shoot dry weight (r = 0.79**), STI (r = 0.96**), GMP (r = 0.97**) and HM (r = 0.95**) but not with SSI. Cluster analysis indicated that the accessions tended to be categorized into three groups at 96 % similarity level, accession AMES5647, PI576464, PI576454 and PI576483 had the highest STI, GMP, MP, HM and was thus considered to be the most desirable cluster for both conditions. In conclusion, this study showed that selection for drought tolerance could be based on STI, GMP, MP, HM based on their significant positive correlation with grain yield.
Keywords
Accessions; drought tolerance; field capacity; grain amaranth; stress tolerance
Hrčak ID:
183226
URI
Publication date:
25.5.2017.
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