Correlation Analysis of Phenotypic Characterization of Cultivated Tiger Nuts (Cyperus esculentus) in China

Abstract:

Tiger nut (Cyperus esculentus) originated from the Mediterranean Coast in North Africa. It is a special oil crop that stores oil in tuber tissues. In order to popularize the cultivation of tiger nut, it is urgent to study the basic biological characteristics of cultivated tiger nut lines in China. Therefore, the germplasm lines from the main planting areas of tiger nut in China were collected. After field planting, some characters of tuber and plant and their correlation among lines were compared and analyzed. According to tuber size and tuber shape, these cultivated tiger nut lines could be divided into three basic types, namely long tuber, big tuber and round tuber. Under the field planting conditions, the flowering rates of each lines ware very few, and there was no significant difference in the number of tuber buds and tuber rings among these lines. However, these three types of tiger nut have great differences in oil content, leaf and plant morphology, and tillering characters. The leaf length-width ratio was significantly positively correlated with the tuber height-width ratio, but the correlation between leaf morphology and tuber oil content was not significant. These would provide important reference for field planting and variety breeding of tiger nuts.

Key words:Cyperus esculentus;Oil content;Tuber shape;Plant architecture;Character correlation