Morphological Traits Defining Breeding Criteria for Coastal Quinoa in Chile

Abstract

Coastal/lowland quinoa ecotype is an important source of germplasm due to its cultivation in cold-temperate and high latitude areas. However, the interaction of its morphological traits and yields to define breeding criteria is unknown. The present study was designed to characterize the phenotypic diversity of twelve coastal/lowland quinoas using sixteen standardized morphological descriptors under rainfed conditions in central Chile. Complementary analysis of uni-and multivariate tools allowed a fuller understanding of interrelationships within quinoa germplasm. Through the analysis of frequency distribution, it was possible to determine that genotypes were characterized by plants having low height and medium grain yield. Cluster analysis revealed that plant morphological variables were independently grouped from grain yield components. Additionally, principal component analysis (PCA, 74.8% of total variation data), revealed the existence of three outstanding genotypes (QC01, QC02 and QC05) that were distantly located from the average dispersion of entire germplasm collection. These genotypes were associated with grain yield components, allowing the identification of two groups of high yield (VI and VII), which yielded 3337.7 and 3052.0 kg ha -1 , respectively. The data set presented in this study is the first report of coastal/lowland quinoas assessed in central Chile and could assist the development of breeding programmes in cold-temperate areas having similar agro-climatic conditions.

Early Mass Selection Response of Two Quinoa Landraces under Highlands Conditions in Northern Chile

“…High significant positive correlation values between inflorescence length and seed yield have also been observed in plants like barnyard grass (Norris, 1992), sorghum (Kenga et al, 2006) and perennial ryegrass (Abel et al, 2017). Likewise, significant positive association between seed yield and stem diameter as obtained in the present study has also been observed in other economically important plants like maize (Ali et al, 2017), wheat (Okuyama et al, 2005) and quinoa (Bhargava et al, 2008;Madrid et al, 2018). Thus, IL, SD and PW should be given proper attention in selection programmes for increasing grain yield in quinoa.…”

“…Genetic gain, a product of heritability and selection differential, has been frequently used as a guiding factor in selection programmes in a number of plants (Badigannavar and Ganapathi, 2018;Kumar and Das, 2018;Mishra et al, 2015) including quinoa (Bhargava et al, 2007(Bhargava et al, , 2008Madrid et al, 2018). After two selection cycles, the results demonstrated that the red line presented a positive genetic gain (p ≤ 0.05) for the PH and NB variables and a negative genetic gain for IW, IL, GD and SC (Tab.…”

“…Grain yield and grain size are frequently used as selection criteria for quinoa breeding programs because of their influence on commercial quality (Bhargava et al, 2006;Madrid et al, 2018;Murphy et al, 2018). The main breeding methods used in quinoa include mass selection, individual selection, pedigree method, hybridization and backcrossing (Murphy et al, 2018;Peterson et al, 2015).…”

Intrapopulation phenotypic variation in Piartal (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) from the Department of Boyac, Colombia

“…The results showed a significant correlation between AP and DT for all populations, as also been observed by Spehar and Santos (2005) when evaluating the agronomic performance of selected quinoa and by Madrid et al (2018) in the evaluation of morphological characteristics related to the improvement of yield in quinoa. LP and DP were positively associated with AP in P1, P2 and P4, indicating that individuals with a greater height develop larger panicles, as found by Alanoca and Machaca (2017), Farooq et al (2018) and Morillo et al (2020).…”

Dormancy and cardinal temperatures for germination in seed from nine quinoa genotypes cultivated in Chile

“…)), and coastal, in central and southern zone at sea level (34–43°S; <300 m a.s.l. ), with an estimated total area of 700 ha that is expected to continue increasing (Madrid et al ., 2018). While the world's largest quinoa production corresponds to the highlands ecotype, Chile's most produced genotypes belong to the coastal ecotype, so recent studies have focused on the improvement of their productivity and commercial value (Murphy et al ., 2018).…”