PATH ANALYSIS OF PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF CHAYOTE FRUIT

Abstract

Chayote is originally from southern Mexico and Guatemala and has been a staple food highly appreciated in Brazil and worldwide. This study was carried out on a Red Yellow Latosol in 2020 to investigate the relationship between the physical properties of chayote fruit of the variety Cambray and their mass, aiming to indicate criteria for direct selection of more attractive fruits. The fruit parameters evaluated were mass (MAS), largest transverse diameter (LTD), smallest transverse diameter (STD), length (FTL), volume (FTV), area (FTA), and perimeter (FTP), as well as seed area (SDA) and seed perimeter (SDP). Initially, correlations among these morphological variables were assessed by Pearson's correlation coefficient, and a correlation network was used to express the results graphically. A diagnosis of multicollinearity was performed, and a condition number of 6639 (multicollinearity severe) was found. Path analysis considered the fruit mass as the main dependent variable. Our analyses showed that MAS, FTV, FTA, FTP, and STD are physical attributes with the greatest potential for selection and identification of more attractive chayote fruits of the variety Cambray for commercial purposes.