Genetic diversity assessment through principal component analysis in potato (Salamun tuberosun L.)

Abstract

In order of importance for food production in comparison to 20 other major food crops, potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) ranks 4th in the world and 3rd in India. It produces high dry matter, minerals, vitamin C & B and carbohydrates per unit area. Besides its significance to human food security, potato is also a crop with fascinating genetic traits and cultural history (Swaminathan, 1999). For improvement in potato crop genetic diversity is required. However due to narrow genetic base in cultivated potato, in India lot of potential yet to be explore. Principal component analysis was done to estimate the variability in germplasm under study. For the principal component analysis each genotype was identified on the basis of correlation matrix as a single point in a standardized multidimensional space. The axes of this space were principal components obtained from the original data as orthogonal transformation of the original variety. In this way each principal component becomes a linear combination of the varietal scores corresponding to the original variables.