Characterization and selection of "Maracujá-do-mato" (Passiflora cincinnata mast) morphoagronomic descriptors

The present study consists of the in situ characterization and selection of minimal morphoagronomic descriptors in Passiflora cincinnata genotypes. Forty-one quantitative morphoagronomic descriptors were used, divided in “Plant and Leaf”, “Floral” and “Fruit”. Principal component analysis were used to eliminate descriptors that were less important in the study of multivariate dissimilarity among genotypes. The formation of groups was carried out using Ward’s hierarchical grouping method. The importance of the characters was estimated through the participation of the components by Singh’s method (1981) in order to verify the similarity between lower participation variables in the components. For the set of descriptors “Plant and Leaf” the characteristics that presented the greatest relative contributions were: maximum leaf width 76.1% and leaf blade length 17.2%. For the set of descriptors “Floral” the characteristics that presented the greatest relative contributions were: pedicel length 42.1%, corona tip diameter 32.6% and petal length 11.8%. For the set of descriptors “Fruit” the characteristic that presented the greatest relative contribution was: number of seeds per fruit 89.2%. From the results obtained, we can infer that from the 41 descriptors, only 15 were relevant for the evaluation of the genetic diversity among the individuals of the population. These descriptors were: titratable acidity, bract length, leaf blade length, petal length, sepal length, pedicel length, corona filament ring length, corona tip diameter, fruit longitudinal diameter, sepal width, maximum leaf width, number of fruits, number of seeds per fruit, bark weight and fruit mass.