In situ characterisation and diversity assessment of calla lily accessions from Kenya and Rwanda using phenotypic traits

Abstract This study was conducted in situ to phenotypically characterise 28 accessions of calla lily (Zantedeschia spp.) sampled in 19 locations in Kenya and Rwanda. Ten plants per accession were sampled from each location for data collection on 15 quantitative and 24 qualitative traits. Data was subjected to descriptive statistics, multivariate analysis as well as cluster analysis using Microsoft excel, SAS 9.4 and JMP Pro 18 respectively. The accessions displayed differences in qualitative traits such as spathe colour and the presence of spots on the leaf blade. However, these variations did not result in a higher Shannon-Wiener diversity index. All the accessions showed variations in the quantitative traits and there was a strong positive correlation among most of the traits. The principal component analysis placed the accessions in 13 significant axes while the discriminant analysis of quantitative traits clustered the accessions in 9 canonical functions. The plotting of the first two axes and the first two canonical functions was able to cluster correctly the six accessions with green spathe. The cluster analysis using qualitative traits grouped calla lily accessions into three clusters while clustering using both quantitative and qualitative traits resulted in one cluster with two sub-clusters with mixed patterns. This suggests that the variables used in this study were sufficient to identify one group of calla lily accessions and could not be useful to differentiate other accessions. Hence, this study recommends using advanced technologies such as biochemical and molecular techniques for characterisation of Kenyan and Rwandan calla lily accessions.