Abstract
The edible qualities are crucial factors for quality of Fresh-eating sweet Corn. However, the research of the edible quality at the milking stage remains largely ambiguous in sweet corn. To identify phenotypes and classify genotypes via principal component analysis and cluster analysis, the textural properties of the grain of 51 sweet corn varieties in regional tests were measured by texture analyzer. The results showed that there was high genetic variation and diversity in the grain textural properties (hardness, springiness, cohesiveness, adhesiveness, chewiness, resilience, gumminess) between the 51 sweet corn varieties. Among the variation in these textural properties, the variation in adhesiveness was the greatest, and the variation in cohesiveness was the smallest; the variation ranges were 1.145~18.190 and 0.126~0.253, respectively. There were very significantly positive relationships between hardness, cohesiveness, chewiness and gumminess; the correlation coefficients were greater than 0.783. However, no significant correlation between resilience and the other traits was observed. According to principal component analysis (PCA), the above seven textural characteristics were governed by three independent principal components. The per cent contributions of the variance of the three independent principal components were 54.656%, 15.814% and 14.737%. Hardness, springiness and resilience were the dominant factors affecting the textural properties of the sweet corn grain. According to systematic cluster analysis, the 51 sweet corn varieties could be classified into 2 groups based on their hardness values, and group 1 could be further classified into 3 subgroups based on the values of springiness and resilience. These results indicated that significant genetic differences exist in the textural properties of sweet corn grain and provided useful information for improving the edible quality of sweet corn.
Highlights
Sweet corn is a subspecies of Zea mays
The textural properties of the 51 sweet corn varieties showed a wide range of variation (Table 2)
Adhesiveness showed the highest coefficient of Xiangnan Li et al.: Identification and Cluster Analysis of Sweet Corn Based on Grain Textural Properties variation (52.425%) and ranged from 1.145 to 18.19035.9, with an average of 6.454±3.383
Summary
Sweet corn is a subspecies of Zea mays. Compared with common corn, sweet corn carries one or more recessive gene mutations that increase the amount of polysaccharides in the endosperm [1, 2]. Sweet corn has advantages of a short production cycle, good market conditions and high economic benefits. During 2011, global imports of frozen sweet corn were valued at $393 million, and preserved sweet corn was valued at $968 million [6]. Countries such as the US, France, Hungary and Thailand are the main export countries of sweet corn products. Japan, Germany, the UK, Spain, the Russian Federation and China are the main import countries of sweet corn, and the demand for sweet corn has displayed a sharp increase in the last few years. From 1998 to 2016, the global sweet corn planting area increased from 66.67 to 147 million hectares, with the total planting area increased by nearly 2.2 times in the past eighteen years [7, 8]
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