Morphological Characterization, Variability and Traits Association among Accessions of Three Species of Crassocephalum (Moench.) S. Moore from Nigeria
Abstract
Crassocephalum species have served as vegetables for decades, yet they remain undomesticated and uncultivated. The knowledge of the variability and traits association of these species could enhance the improvement and thus facilitate their domestication and cultivation. Twenty-one accessions of Crassocephalum species were characterized in a Randomized Complete Block Design to determine intra and inter-specifies variability and traits association for their improvement with a view to facilitate their domestication and cultivation. One way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and correlation coefficients were used to analyze the data. The results revealed significant intra and inter-specifies variability among the accessions characterized. The first three axes of PCA accounted for over 60% of total variation with leaf length, leaf width, days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, number of achenes/head and number of filled achenes/head as discriminants. Positive and significant phenotypic correlations were observed between leaf length and leaf width with petiole length, internode length, peduncle length, and number of days to maturity. High positive correlation was observed for number of capitula/plant with capitulum diameter and number of filled achenes per head. Hence, the principal contributors to total variation which are leaf length, leaf width, days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, number of achenes/head and number of filled achenes/head are hereby suggested to breeders in developing a suitable breeding programme for Crassocephalum crepidioides, C. rubens and C. togoense.
NAJ supports free online communication and exchange of knowledge as the most effective way of ensuring that the fruits of research and development practice are made widely available. It is therefore committed to open access, which, for authors, enables the widest possible dissemination of their findings and, for readers, increases their ability to discover pertinent information. The Journal adopts and uses the CC: BY license and is open access. This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the Journal’s published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Copyright for articles published in this Journal is retained by the Journal.
