Practical importance of numerical taxonomy as a useful tool in the classification of pea landraces for their different uses

Abstract

Seventy two landraces plus four commercial varieties studied in 1989-1990 for twenty quantitative and four multistate traits were grouped into seven clusters of populations according to their earliness, shoot height, foliage area, pod quality characters, seed quality and some components of yield (number of seed per pod and number of ovules per pod). The grouping pattern of varieties (cluster) did not reflect geographical origin. From the practical point of view, dendrogram based on 24 characters provided taxonomically useful results, since there are there important groups, the first one Group I, includes varieties which could be used for combining(livestock), the second one Group II, includes cultivars which could be used as fresh pea and the last one Group IV, includes cultivars which could be used for their tender green pods.