Abstract:

The objective of this study was to measure the grain quality and other traits of 77 naked oat （Avena nuda） varieties， and use the cluster analysis method to classify and compare the measurement indicators， and use the gray correlation degree for a multivariate evaluation， to identify naked oat varieties most suitable for planting in Qinghai. The main findings were as follows： 1） The coefficient of variation of 1000-grain weight was the highest at 49.29%， followed by grain crude fat and crude protein contents （12.23% and 9.83%， respectively）. The highest significant positive correlations with 1000-grain weight were for grain length， width and diameter. The grain crude protein and starch contents were significantly negatively correlated with grain moisture content， and the grain crude protein content was extremely significantly negatively correlated with crude fat content. 2） The results of multivariate evaluation of multiple indicators of the tested oat varieties using grey system theory showed that three varieties with the best multivariate score among the 77 different naked oat varieties were No. 5 （0.679）， No. 73 （0.676） and No. 26 （0.649）. 3） Cluster analysis of the same traits of the tested varieties yielded six groups， and among these group Ⅵ included 70% of the top 10 varieties identified by multivariate evaluation， including the 3 varieties with the highest multivariate score （Nos. 5， 73 and 26）. This group can therefore be regarded as identifying excellent naked oat varieties.

Key words: naked oat, grain nutritional quality, weight, gray relevancy, multivariate evaluation