Clustering of 24 Lesser Yam (Dioscorea esculenta L.) Indonesian Local Accessions Based on Morphological Characteristics

Abstract

Background: Lesser yam (Dioscoreacea esculenta L.) is one of the potential sources of tubers crops as industrial raw materials for food, feed and other purposes. The objective of this study was to characterize and morphologically classify lesser yam originated from three provinces in Java island of Indonesia. Methods: A total of 24 lesser yam accessions from Central Java, East Java and DIY were characterized for morphological characters in Malang in 2018 refers to the standard evaluation for Dioscorea. Result: The results showed a diversity of morphological characteristics in leaves, stems and tubers. For quantitative traits, the variability is seen in stem length, stem diameter, internode length, spine length, leaf length, leaf width, tip length, petiole length, tuber length and tuber width. For qualitative characteristics, diversity is seen in stem color, petiole color, leaf density, roots on the tuber, tuber skin color and flesh color of tuber. Lesser yam accessions were divided into four groups with a dissimilarity value of 0.00-0.89. Group I consisted of 15 accessions with characteristic stem color brownish brown to dark brown, color spot at spine base purple, thorns on the stem quite a lot, tuber flesh color white. Group II consisted of 6 accessions with the characteristics of having slightly rounded, smaller leaves. Group III has one accession, the petiole is shorter, the tuber is small and has a yellow flesh color. Group IV consisted of two accessions that had smaller leaves than groups 1 and 2, few roots on the tuber surface and yellow tuber flesh.