Correlação canônica para identificação de caracteres importantes na seleção precoce de tubérculos de batata

Abstract

The potato is recognized worldwide as an important source of food to decrease hunger, because of its nutritional traits, as well as an alternative to rural employment and financial income. In Brazil, potato is characterized by high dependence of cultivars of European origin, for this reason, many universities and companies have contributed to breeding researches, in an attempt to achieve cultivars with quality and adaptation it to our conditions. A strategy used by breeders is the early selection, to reduce costs and effort for clones maintenance and multiplication. The objective of this work was to test the canonical correlation, as a statistical tool to assist in the early selection of potatoes clones, to identify characters, related to tubers planted and their production. For this, there three experiments in three different seasons were conducted, in the experimental area Fitotecnia Department of the Federal University of Santa Maria, with 10 potatoes progenies. The characters used for the analysis of canonical correlation were the tubers planted and their production: length, larger diameter, smaller diameter and mass. The canonical correlation identified shows that there is a relationship between characters of the tubers planted and produced. The largest association occurs with tuber length, suggesting that if it were planted long tubers, you get, more elongated tubers as well.