RESEARCH ARTICLE SABRAO Journal of Breeding and Genetics 51 (1) 37-56, 2019 MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS VARIABILITY OF TARO (Colocasia spp.) IN KALIMANTAN, INDONESIA BASED ON PHENETIC ANALYSIS APPROACH L. OKTAVIANINGSIH1,2,*, E. SUHARYANTO3,, B.S. DARYONO4 and PURNOMO5 1Postgraduate Student, Faculty of Biology, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia 2Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathmetics and Natural Science, Universitas Mulawarman, Indonesia 3Laboratory of Plant Structure and Development, Faculty of Biology, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia 4Laboratory of Genetics and Breeding, Faculty of Biology, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia 5Laboratory of Plant Systematics, Faculty of Biology, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia *Corresponding author‟s email:
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[email protected] SUMMARY Taro (Colocasia spp.) is an aroid plant which has long been cultivated in Kalimantan. This plant is considered as one of the oldest forms of cultivated plants in the region. Information about its morphological variability is needed to develop taro breeding population as future alternative crop. The aim of this research was to determine the morphological characters variability of taro in Kalimantan, Indonesia based on phenetic analysis approach. Leaf, petiole, stolon and corm samples were collected in all Indonesian provinces of Kalimantan. Similarity index was measured using the gower general similarity coefficient and cluster analysis was carried using the unweighted pair group method using arithmetic average (UPGMA). A dendrogram and principal component analysis (PCA) were constructed using Multivariate Statistical Program v.3.1 software. Around 123 accessions had been collected and evaluated using 39 morphological traits.