ISSN 2375-0693
African Journal of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development ISSN 2375-0693 Vol. 6 (1), pp. 556-561, January, 2018. © International Scholars Journals
Full Length Research Paper
Morphological variability of tepary bean landraces grown in Botswana
*Nijel Amantle Mpule, Baralong Mompati and Mapela Kenosi
Department of Agricultural Research, Oilseeds and Grain Legumes, Ministry of Agriculture, Private Bag 0033, Gaborone, Botswana.
*Corresponding Author. E-mail: [email protected]
Accepted 11 January, 2017
Abstract
A field experiment was conducted at Department of Agricultural Research in Sebele in the 2012 to 2013 season using nine accessions that were sourced from the National Plant Genetic Resource Centre (NPGRC), Gaborone, Botswana. Multivariate statistical procedures such as clusters and principal component analysis were used on 15 selected characters to assess agro-morphological variability among tepary bean landraces collected in Botswana. Few characters were statistically significant which suggest lower genetic diversity among the Botswana tepary beans. The first three PCA accounted for 77.12% of accumulated variation. Traits which revealed significant contribution to variation among accessions were number of leaves, plant spread, pod width, 100 seed weight and seeds per pod. The dendrogram results also showed that these characters contributed significantly to the grouping of accessions into three clusters. Three accessions GK011, MTS (Motsumi) and GK012 were separated from the rest of the accessions. However, GK012 and MTS (Motsumi) with highest number of valuable traits are recommended for plant breeders to use as parents in future breeding programs.
Key words: Tepary bean, agro-morphological traits, dendrogram, principal components analysis, multivariate analysis.