Characterization of water chestnut (Trapa natans L.) genotypes for yield and nutritional traits using PCA analysis

Yield and its contributing attributes are mostly targeted in improvement programmes, so the existence of variability has prime importance in plant breeding. In the present study, 36 genotypes of water chestnut were assessed with principal component analyses (PCA) based on morphological and quality traits to select genotypes and traits for future breeding programmes. Based on the PCA with 21 traits, 21 components were formed; however, 9 PCs had more than 1 Eigenvalue with a variability of 74.3%. So, these nine PCs were used for further investigation. The first principal component exhibited maximum variability of the total variations present. PC1 correlated with the number of leaves per plant, number of fruit-nut per plant, single fresh nut weight, dried shelled nut weight, Zn content in rind, Fe content in shelled nut, Mn content in shelled nut and rind and fresh nut yield per plant, while PC2 dominated by Fe content in shelled nut, Mn content in shelled nut and Mn content in rind and TSS. PC3 correlated with traits like the number of fruit-nut per plant, leaf width, fruit pedicel length, TSS, 10 fresh nut weight and Fe content in the rind. PC4 reflected positive factor loading by fruit pedicel length, dried 10 nut rind weight and Zn content in rind. PC5 correlated with single shelled nut weight and number of fruit-nut per plant high with positive factor loading. PC6 correlated with leaf width, dried single-shelled nut, 10 fresh nut weight. PC7 positively correlated with factor loading values with single-shelled nut weight, dried 10 nut rind weight and number of leaves per plant. PC8 correlated with traits like 10 fresh nut weight, Fe content in shelled nut and number of fruit nut per plant.PC9 positively correlated with high values to leaf width, number of fruit-nut per plant and number of leaves per plant. Therefore, the important traits coming jointly from diverse PCs and contributing towards elucidation variability may be kept into consideration during the utilization of these traits in the improvement programmes of water chestnut.