Principal Component Analysis of Growth and Biomass Characteristics for Different Progenies of Ulmus villosa Brandis

Abstract

The present study was carried out in order to find out the most important character contributing towards genetic variability in 30 Ulmus villosa progenies on the basis of principal component analysis. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was carried out taking 10 important parameters, proved useful in extracting the most important factors. Three principal components contributed 84.62% of total variance. First principal component contributed 40.97% of total variation whereas the second component accounted for 24.93% variation and the third explains 18.72 % of variation. In the first PCA high loadings for traits such as shoot fresh weight (0.853), shoot dry weight (0.843), collar diameter (0.764) and plant height (0.736) represented those which are important for selection and further improvement of the species. The study revealed that maximum weightage should be given to fresh shoot weight due to its maximum variable loading for the initial selection of progenies for the biomass improvement of the species.