Analysis of Genetic Diversity in Edible Aroid Accessions of India Based on Morphological Characters

Abstract

The family Araceae includes the important edible aroids like Amorphophallus peaoniifolius var.  campanulatus (elephant foot yam), Colocasia esculenta (taro), Xanthosoma sagittifolium (tannia) etc.  Most of these root crops are important source of food in many tropical countries, primarily grown fortheir corms and cormels, although sometimes the leaves are also used as vegetable. The Araceae  family is highly heterogeneous, with enormous variation in morphology, chromosome structure and  number. The Central Tuber Crops Research Institute, Thiruvananthapuram, India, is maintaining about  590 taro and 183 elephant foot yam accessions, which represent genotypes collected from different  parts of India and forms the backbone of the variability existing within the country. However, there is  chance of duplicates being present in the above collection. Hence morphological characterization is  resorted to identify the duplicates. National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR) descriptors  were used for both taro and elephant foot yam for this purpose. In the present paper, diversity analysis  using cluster package (R package) was done for 45 taro accessions on the basis of six tuber charactersand 26 elephant foot yam accessions on the basis of 14 above ground characters. The results  showed that five clusters were formed in taro based on six tuber characters, whereas, in elephant foot  yam, six major clusters were formed. No duplicates could be identified within the accessions screened.