Classification of maize landraces from Shikoku and Kyushu, Japan, based on phenotypic characteristics

Abstract

We examined 40 accessions of maize collected from Shikoku (36) and Kyushu (4) for 18 characteristics of growth, yield, and ear morphology. Nested ANOVA revealed significant variations among the accessions in most of the characteristics. Principal component analysis of 11 representative characteristics revealed that the first 4 principal components (Eigenvalues > 1) accounted for 75.2% of the total variation. These 4 components indicated earliness of growth, ear morphology, yield ability, and seed size in decreasing order of effects. Using cluster analysis based on the 4 components, we identified at least 8 cultivars, which we tentatively assigned to 5 cultivar groups defined in the 1960s. The accessions from Shikoku are rich in phenotypic variations and include landraces that have not been mentioned before.