All Are in a Drought, but Some Stand Out: Multivariate Analysis in the Selection of Agronomic Efficient Popcorn Genotypes

Abstract

The search for productive germplasm adapted to adverse conditions is an important action to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change. The aim was to identify the yield potential of 50 popcorn inbred lines grown in field conditions, in two crop seasons (CS), and under contrasting water conditions (WC). Morphoagronomic, physiological, and root system traits were evaluated. Joint and individual analyses of variance were performed, in addition to the multivariate GT bip-lot analysis. Expressive reductions between WC were observed in 100-grain weight (100 GW), popping expansion (PE), grain yield (GY), expanded popcorn volume per ha (EPV), row number per ear (RNE), plant height (PH), relative chlorophyll content (SPAD), and nitrogen balance index (NBI). It was found that the SPAD, 100 GW, GY, PE, and grain number per ear (GNE) traits had the most significant impact on the selection of genotypes. Regardless of WC and CS, the ideal lines were L294 and L688 for PE; L691 and L480 for GY; and L291 and L292 for both traits. SPAD, 100 GW, and GNE can contribute to the indirect selection. Our work contributes to understanding the damage caused by drought and the integration of traits for the indirect selection of drought-tolerant popcorn genotypes.

RETRACTED: Variability among maize (Zea mays L.) inbred lines for agro- morphological traits

“…According to Wang et al (2022), PCA helps to clarify, condense, and forecast correlations among various variables. The analysis used was for determining secondary traits for rice under salinity stress (Anshori et al 2019) , maize's tolerance to drought stress (Fadhli et al 2020), and the genotype selection of popcorn (Leite et al 2022). A recent study by Barth et al (2022) used multivariate analysis of various agro-morphological traits in maize.…”

Morphological parameters, heritability, yield component correlation, and multivariate analysis to determine secondary characters in selecting hybrid maize

“…Principal component analysis (PCA) can simplify, reduce, and predict relationships among multiple variables (Wang et al 2022). This analysis has been widely reported by several researchers in determining secondary traits, as reported by Anshori et al (2019) in rice under salinity stress, Fadhli et al (2020) in maize tolerance to drought stress, and Leite et al (2022) in selection popcorn genotype. This makes it easier to identify traits with the same character variation as the main traits (Kose et al 2018;Femenias et al 2022).…”

“…Path analysis provides information about cause and effect in understanding the causes of relationships between two variables (Rajput 2019). This is very useful for determining the best secondary characters, as it is considered a more complex technique compared to ordinary regression, especially for direct effect variables (Faot et al 2019;Leite et al 2022). Direct effects are variable indicators of the magnitude of the variation of a character directly influencing the main character's variation (Manjunatha et al 2018;Al-Amin et al 2019;Guo et al 2023).…”

Unveiling Drought-Resilient Latin American Popcorn Lines through Agronomic and Physiological Evaluation

“…In popcorn, it is known that, besides agronomic traits, indices related to the leaf greenness, leaf photosynthetic status, and stomatal conductance have been shown to be reliable indicators of agronomic performance under drought [ 12 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 ]. In these studies, a set of Brazilian germplasms was used, making it necessary to expand the genetic base to be evaluated to identify new sources of superior germplasm.…”