Comparative study of classical and numerical taxonomic methods for infraspecific taxa of "Triticum aestivum" L. tradicionally cultivated in Galicia (NW Spain)

Resumo

Application of classical taxonomic methods of Trificurn es! •!i L. to traditional Galician wheats suggests the existence of four varieties. However, morphological characters used for identification of varieties are not well delimited and display frequently a continuity which makes it difficult to establish limits among them. Numerical taxonomic methods consisted of an Analysis of Principal Components and an Association Analysis using the routines Factor and Quick cluster from the statistics package SPSS-PC+. This analysis indicates the poor discriminatory power of morphological characters_ Three classes were obtained by numerical taxonomic methods and no one would agree with the level of variety. Since traditional varietal differentiation for Galician wheats cannot be justified by numerical taxonomy neither classical taxonornics methods, it should be advisable not to use the level of variety for Galician wheats