Biometric evaluation of Passiflora cincinnata seeds obtained from the herbaceous extract of the caatinga biome

Abstract

Seed biometrics is an important tool to detect genetic variability within populations of the same species. In this sense, the objective was to evaluate biometric evaluation of Passiflora cincinnata seeds obtained from the herbaceous extract of the caatinga biome. The work was developed at the Federal Rural University of the Semi-arid, Mossoró, Brazil, in the year 2019. 300 units of seeds of various genotypes of Passiflora cincinnata were collected, in an area of the herbaceous extract of the caatinga biome, where the following were evaluated characteristics: a) morphological characterization of Passiflora cincinnata, determining the length and width of 300 seeds, with the help of a caliper, being expressed in millimeters b) thickness of the seeds, being expressed in millimeters; and c) seed weight, expressed in grams. There was a regular degree of symmetry for the frequency distributions of the length, width, thickness, length/width ratio and weight of Passiflora cincinnata seeds, being different from zero. A degree of flattening or kurtosis of the platicurtic and leptocurtic type was found for the evaluated characteristics. Responses from scientific research on descriptive measures of location, variability or scale, asymmetry and kurtosis may serve as a basis for future studies of descriptive analysis and statistical inference, for comparison of different environments, genetic studies and plant breeding, as well as in construction of the so-called variance components, for simulation and modeling studies applied to agriculture.