Novel approaches for selection of coffea canephora by correlation analysis

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate, using path analysis, the genotypic correlations of primary and secondary production components as well as their decomposition into direct and indirect effects on the yield of coffee crops subjected to programed cycle pruning (PCP). Twenty-two Conilon coffe genotypes belonging to the breeding program developed by Incaper were subjected to PCP and 17 morphoagronomic traits were measured in new branches. The traits plagiotropic branch length and number of plagiotropic leaves were discarded to eliminate collinearity problems. Path analysis was efficient in identifying the traits with greatest influence on yield. The most important traits linked to yield were number of orthotropic branches and orthotropic branch dry matter, while the secondary traits were orthotropic branch diameter, orthotropic internode length, and length of the plagiotropic branch internode. To increase coffee crop yield, producers should select genotypes that produce an intermediate number of orthotropic branches, which have a higher dry matter yield. Subsequently, they should select genotypes with larger orthotropic branch diameters, and among these, those which have shorter orthotropic and plagiotropic internode lengths.