Morphological characterization of Amaranthus cruentusL. mutant lines derived from local and preferred Amaranthus cultivar

Amaranthus species are of underutilized orphan crops grown in tropical and sub-tropical regions the world. Benin’s most appreciated cruentus L. «local» cultivar is susceptible to saline stress. This study aimed create genotypes agronomically, at least, as good useful for further tolerance breeding using mutation breeding. The morphological diversity among 19 gamma-irradiated A. mutant lines (control) were investigated, through a randomized complete block design with three replications, 18 phenotypical traits (12 quantitative 6 qualitative). results show that six qualitative traits, only terminal inflorescence shape was discriminant. However, permutation analysis variance revealed significant variability traits: leaf width (CV=19%), Branches length (CV=47%), plant height (CV=25%), stem diameter (CV=29%), number branches (21%) leaves (CV=25%). Multivariate showed first two principal components contributing 78.30% observed variability. Correlation significance leaves, branches, selecting better biomass production. Mutant L1, L2, L6, L16, L18 L23 high performances cited above could, therefore, be source genes.