a study of agronomy, morphological and phenological traits of sainfoin( onobrychis viciifolia scop) using multivariate analysis

this experiment was conducted to investigate the genetic diversity, relationship between morphological, agronomic and qualitative traits and to identify components of forage yield using some multivariate statistical methods in local sainfoin populations. the experiment was conducted as randomized complete block design with three replications in agricultural and natural resources research center of west azerbaijan. results indicated that correlation coefficients of forage yield with number of branches per main stem, number of leave and number of stem were significantly positive but with harvest index leaf and degree day emergence was significantly negative. forage yield had no correlation with plant height but plant height was correlated with number of leave. principal component analysis revealed six component which justified more than 76 percent of the total variation, and classified as “yield”, “dry weight”, “plant size”, “harvest index leaf”, “morphological-phenological traits” and “flowering rate”, respectively. on the basis of stepwise regression analysis, number of stem, plant height and number of leave justified the majority of hay yield variation. hence, these characters could be use for selecting high yield cultivars. thus, direct effect of these three traits on forage yield were calculated 0/726, 0/226 and -0/984 respectively by path analysis. finally, on the basis of the current result in this research compared with previous findings, it can be concluded that multivariate statistical methods can be useful to find relationships between quantitative characters in sainfoin.