Screening for drought-resistant pepper cultivars by multivariate statistical analysis

Abstract

Principal component, membership function, and clustering analyses were used to examine the drought resistance of twenty pepper cultivars based on the morphological and physiological indicators measured under drought stress simulated with PEG solution during germination and seedling stages. Results showed that significant differences existed among the pepper cultivars in their germination percentage, germination potential, plant height, and chlorophyll content indices. The eight indicators fell into five principal components, and 90.76% of the original information was preserved. Based on the clustering analysis of factor score values, the twenty pepper cultivars were divided into three categories. 'Red Cherry Hot', 'Serrano', 'Sweet Banana', 'Biggie Chile', 'Hungarian Yellow Wax', and 'Variegata' were found to be drought-sensitive cultivars. 'Tabasco', 'Portugal Hot', 'Pompeii', 'Cayenne Long Thin', 'Mohawk', 'Fooled You', 'Yolo Wonder', 'Treasures Red', 'Anaheim', 'Thai', and 'Caribbean Red Hot' were found to be drought medium-sensitive cultivars. 'Purple Beauty', 'Ethem', and 'Jalapeno Early Hot' comprised the drought-resistant cultivar group.