GENETIC DIVERSITY IN AMARANTHUS CAUDATUS COLLECTED FROM SOUTHWEST NIGERIA

Abstract

Amaranths (Amaranthus species) are traditional leaf and pseudo-grain vegetables in the tropics. They areimportant for theirnutritional and medicinal properties.Forty nine amaranth (Amaranthuscaudatus) genotypescollected from south west Nigeria were planted at Ile-Ife with a view to determine the extent of genetic diversity among the genotypes. The morphological characterization of 49 genotypes were laid out in 7x7 lattice design with four replications and data were collected on growth and yield characteristics. Three multivariate techniques; Factor Analysis (FA), Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Single Linkage Cluster Analysis (SLCA) were employed to analyse the magnitude and pattern of diversity among the genotypes. The genotypes were grouped into four clusters based on their level of similarity by the SLCA.Ten genotypes selected across the four clusters formed by SLCA based on their level of similarity were planted in Randomized Complete Block Design with four replications to determine the magnitude of genetic variability and character association among the genotypes and to examine their performances across two locations. The results showed that the first four factors from the FA and PCA axes captured 75.80% and 74.17% of the total variance respectively. The FA and PCA identified plant height, number of leaves, leaf length, growth rate, leaf expansion rate and leaf petiole as most important characters in discriminating the 49A. caudatus genotypes.The result of the genetic variability (of ten selected genotypes) showed that significant variation occurred among the genotypes with respect to six characters at Ile-Ife. These were plant height, leaf length, leaf area, stem girth, petiole length and leaf width. At Akure, genotypes were significantly different (P≤0.05) in seven characters namely plant height, number of leaves, inflorescence length, root weight, stem weight, leaf weight and number of branches. Genotype EKT06 that performed best in