study of genetic diversity and factor analysis for yield and some morphological traits in strawberry cultivars

genetic diversity is essential in the implementation of breeding programs. in order to determine genetic diversity, factor analysis and heritability of yield and some morphological traits, 20 strawberry cultivars were studied at the agricultural station of kurdistan research center using a randomized complete block design with three replications. morphological characteristics such as number of leaf, runner, crown, inflorescence, flower and fruit per plant and leaf area, leaf long/wide, petiole long, number of flower per inflorescence, fruit set, fruit size, inflorescence long, fruit weight and yield were evaluated. statistical parameters, including broad sense heritability, phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation were estimated. results of analysis of variance showed significant differences among genotypes for all traits at 1% probability level, indicating the existence of significant differences among studied cultivars. the highest genotypic coefficient of variation was found for the number of fruit, flower per plant and yield. the highest phenotypic coefficient of variation was observed for the number of fruit, runner and flower per plant. the highest broad sense heritability was estimated for the number of flower, fruit per plant and yield suggesting low effect of environmental variation. the lowest broad sense heritability was estimated for the number of runner per plant and leaf area. results of factor analysis revealed four factors for discrimination of studied traits and these factors distinguished 83.83% of total variation. results of discrimination of traits via biplot based on the 2 first factors confirmed the ability of results of factor analysis for discrimination of traits. also, clustering of genotypes via biplot based on the 2 first factors divided studied genotypes into 4 groups. totally, results of this research showed the existence of genetic diversity and the goodness of grouping of genotypes based on the factor analysis. also, among the studied genotypes and for the most of the studied traits, queen eliza was superior.