PHENOTYPIC VARIATION AND CORRELATION OF FRUIT TRAITS IN DIVERSE MUSKMELON MATERIALS

Abstract

Understanding the phenotypic variation, correlation, and identification of important agronomic traits will speed up the selection efficiency of elite melon materials for nutritious hybrid melon breeding in Vietnam. This study utilized three approaches viz., correlation analysis, principal component analysis, and cluster analysis methods to investigate the primary and secondary relationships of the main agronomic traits affecting the yield and quality of 20 muskmelon materials originated from Taiwan-China, India, Thailand, and Japan in the Spring and Autumn season 2021 in Gia Lam, Ha Noi. The results showed that the highest significant positive correlation at p < 0.001 was observed between fruit weight (FW) and fruit length (FL) (0.744***), fruit diameter (FD) (0.716***) and fruit thickness (FT) (0.527***). A total of ten quantitative traits could be reduced to just four components, which could explain more than 90% of the total variation. The first four traits viz., FW, FL, FD, and FT contributed more than 90% of their cumulative contribution, these principal component values ​​representing genetic characteristics of eight agronomic traits. Hierarchical clustering based on principal component analysis showed that 20 muskmelon materials were divided into three distinct groups in the Spring season and four distinct groups in the Autumn season. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on applying dimension reduction methods to investigate phenotypic variability in muskmelon materials in Vietnam.