Factor Analysis and Synthetic Evaluation of the Main Qualities of Vegetable Sweetpotato Advanced Selections

Vegetable sweetpotato is a new vegetable using sweetpotato varieties with great nutrition and health promoting values. Quality analysis and evaluation of vegetable sweetpotato play an important part in its breeding and comprehensive utilization. This study aimed to build an efficient and suitable method for vegetable sweetpotato quality evaluation and identify key factors for comprehensive properties that will improve breeding and utilization. In this study, 8 characters of 11 advanced selections were measured and the key factors affecting vegetative quality were extracted using factor analysis, with the properties of these advanced selections for vegetable sweetpotato then evaluated using the extracted factors. Results showed that the first three extracted factors accounted for 76.671% of total variation. The primary factor consisted of protein, total dietary fiber and taste; the second factor consisted of ash content, total flavonoid and total phenol; and the third factor consisted of soluble sugar. Six selections with good performance were determined with scatter plots, with EC04, EC05, EC06, EC08, EC12 and EC13 possibly considered as candidate selections.