Investigation of Morphological and Phonological Diversity of some Imported Soybean (Glycine max L.) Cultivars using Principle Component Analysis

This research was performed to evaluate 124 different soybean genotypes with different maturity type based on augmented design in six blocks with four control cultivars as Telar, Sari, Williams and Sahar at Baye Kola Agricultural Research Station-Mazandaran Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Center. In order to perform the project, each genotype was cultivated on 3 meter line with 60 cm planting space between rows and 3-5 cm space between two seeds. The results of principle component analysis showed that 77.072 % of data variation was expressed according to five components. The results of biplot indicated that the most traits related to yield; its components and phonological properties were located in two regions except protein content which could be used for the studied genotypes breeding. In addition, based on clustering results obtained from the related traits to first and second components, the studied soybean genotypes were grouped in two clusters which the first one included genotypes with early maturity, high oil content and low yield components and protein content, while the second cluster consisted of late maturity group, low oil content, high yield component and high protein content. In total, on the basis of diversity existence accompanied by the research objective, it could be used the studied soybean genotypes in further breeding programs.