Phenotypic divergence for morphological and yield-related traits in black oat (Avena strigosa)

This study aims to evaluate the phenotypic divergence among 46 accessions of A. strigosa from Mesoregions Northwest and Northeast of Rio Grande do Sul. The experiment was carried out in the field, in a randomized block design, with three replications. The germplasm was characterized using 40 morphoagronomic, 21 of which were either binary or multicategoric, while 19 were quantitative traits as cycle (days to heading), plant length, peduncle, glume and lemma, and production of biomass and grains. The data were submitted to descriptive, univariate, and multivariate statistical analysis. The accessions were monomorphic in 17 out of 21 among qualitative characters. Vegetative habit, diameter, length, and wall thickness of culm were the main quantitative traits in the discrimination of the accessions. The maximum and minimum dissimilarity, expressed by the generalized Mahalanobis distance, ranged from 2.98 up to 55.71. Based on the magnitude of divergence and performance towards agronomic traits in attributes, some accessions may be incorporated into breeding programs of the species