Canonical Correlation Analysis for Understanding The Relationship Between Root and Shoot Morphological Traits in Barley Under Contrasting Moisture Stress Condition During Early Growth Stage

Understanding the relationship between root system and shoot related traits is an important objective in crop breeding programs. Canonical correlation analysis has been adopted to study the strength of association between the root morphological traits and shoot morphological traits under low-moisture stress and well-watered conditions and to find the root morphological characters that have the largest influence on shoot-related traits in seedling stage. Most of the traits under study revealed a significant reduction under low-moisture stress condition except root length which showed a significant increasing under the same condition. Root length and root number were had the largest effect on shoot dry weight and plant height under low-moisture stress and well-watered condition. The results of cumulative redundancy showed that about 45% of the total variability in the shoot-related characters is accounted for by the root morphological characters under control condition and this percentage reduced up to 41% under moisture stress.