Associação entre características de qualidade de sementes e rendimento de grãos em cultivares de feijão

The bean cultivation is highly relevant nationally. In addition to the grain yield trait, many agronomic characters are important in defining the productive potential of a bean cultivar. Thus, the objective of this work was to evaluate the association of characteristics of seed quality with grain yield in bean cultivars. The experiments were carried out in a completely randomized design and randomized blocks, both with four replications, using ten bean cultivars. The evaluated traits were grain yield (kg ha-1), number of normal and abnormal seedlings, seedling length (cm), root length (cm), shoot length (cm), fresh and dry seedling mass (g) and cotyledon fresh dry mass (g). The principal component analysis captured a percentage change in the two initial axes of 67.40 for variables, and 99.15 for cultivars. The variables grain yield, cotyledon dry mass and cotyledon fresh mass were positively related, with a strong association. The variable with the greatest contribution to the discrimination of cultivars was grain yield. The seedling length, abnormal seedlings and normal seedlings showed less contributions, and can be used complementarily to discriminate genotypes.