Genetic diversity of yield and yield components in few lentil (Lens culinaris Medikus (genotypes using multivariate statistical methods

Due to the increasing need for agricultural products and the limited water and soil resources for growing crops, it is necessary to study genetic resources, and on the other hand, genetic materials are resources that are considered valuable for plant breeding specialists who try to collect and maintain and evaluate these materials. Iran is one of the main centers of genetic diversity in the world. Identifying the morphological traits is the first step in classifying and describing the pattern of each plant, and several scientists have attempted to classify and measure the phenomenological diversity of specimen collections of various legumes, including lentils. Since Iran is one of the centers of lentil diversity in the world, it is predicted that a great diversity will be found among the native populations of this plant.

In order to evaluate the efficiency of multivariate statistical methods in identifying the most important traits affecting grain yield and genetic pattern in lentil genotypes in Ilam province, an experiment as randomized complete block design with three replications using 18 lentil genotypes (two local cultivars) in Sarablah Agricultural Research Station per year was implemented in 2018-2019. Selected traits included the number of leaves of a plant, the number of seeds in a pod, the number of seeds of a plant, the number of flowers on a plant, the number of lateral shoot, flowering and maturity dates, the estimated weight of 100 seeds and final grain yield. 

Based on the variance analysis, all traits showed meaningful differences until the experiment day except the number of seeds in a pod and the number of pods of a plant. The genotype named 11 (Flip 2010-90L (and genotype named 15 (ILL 754* ILL) showed the highest and the lowest grain yield, respectively which were 1432.3 and 500 g.m-2. The estimated weight of 100 seeds (r= 0.314) and the number of pods showed the highest positive correlation with grain yield. The basic derivatives of the analysis showed the amount of more than one. The validation amount of total variance was 69.9%. Furthermore, the first and second agents showed the most amount of total variance, which was 3.39%. The six positive traits were the amount of seeds in a pod, the amount of seeds in an herb, the length of the plant, the estimated weight of hundred seeds and the functionality of the plant. In addition, the second positive agents included the number of seeds in a pod, the number of leaves in an herb, the length of the plant and the number of lateral shoots. This study was employed in order to determination of the excellent genotypes regarding the studied traits. Another aim of this research was the enhancement of the availability to the lentil sources. In this study, a wide variety of seed traits such as 100-seed weight and phenological traits such as flowering date, number of seeds per pod, number of leaves per plant and plant height which can be used in breeding programs were recorded. According to statistical analysis, it was found that the studied genotypes have good diversity in terms of grain yield. Number of seeds per plant, 100-seed weight, plant height are some of the traits that showed a positive relationship with seed yield. Since the first factor justifies the most changes, the traits that have the largest factor coefficients in this factor can be plant height, day to maturity and number of seeds per pod and can be selected to select the best genotypes and lines of these traits used. According to the results of the analysis of the main components, the first two components have the traits of day to maturity, plant height and number of seeds per pod, which can be considered as desirable traits in lentils; which is necessary to confirm the results of the repeat test.

The statistical analysis indicated the agreeable variance based on the seed functionality among the selected genotypes.