Categorizing important agronomic traits in potato selected hybrids derived from crosses of Savalan and Ceaser Cultivars using cluster analysis and discriminate function analysis

In order to categorize 20 selected potato hybrids derived from crossing Savalan (as female parent) and Ceaser (as male parent) varieties according to the evaluated traits, an experiment in Agriculture and Natural Resources Research Station of Ardabil in agronomic year of 2012 in completely randomized block design with three replications was conducted. In this study the number of tubers per plant, tuber weight per plant, tuber yield, marketable tuber yield, dry matter percent, day number till tuberization, plant height, number of main stems per plant and main stem diameter were evaluated and in order to analyze the average of random samples was used. After standardizing the data, cluster analysis was performed using WARD method and Euclidean distance square distance coefficient was obtained, and the hybrids along with their parents were placed in the 3 groups. Using diagnostic function the best place to cut the dendrogram was performed. The first cluster consists of five hybrids, this cluster from tuber yield, marketable tuber yield, tuber weight, plant height and dry matter percent took the highest average. Therefore to increase tuber yield, superior hybrids of these clusters can be used in hybridization. The second cluster included 10 hybrids along with two parents and most of the hybrids of this cluster were average and lower than average from traits point of view. The third cluster contained 5 hybrids and for which all characters except days to tuber creation and dry matter percent got positive percent of deviations from the mean.