THE CLASSIFICATION OF A SESBANIA SESBAN (SSP SESBAN) COLLECTION .2. AGRONOMIC ATTRIBUTES AND THEIR RELATION TO BIOMASS ESTIMATION

A collection of Sesbania sesban accessions was grown out in the field and classified using real and standardised values of 10 agronomic attr ibutes. Clustering the accessions using the observed values of the att ributes produced several groups which were mainly based on the dry mat ter yields after the first and second harvests. The cluster analysis o n the standardised values of the descriptors provided 10 similarity gr oups. These groups were identified and compared with an earlier morpho logical classification. Some of the observed characters were used to e stablish their relationship with biomass yield of the trees. The data were therefore subjected to linear regression analysis. Predictive equ ations were obtained for the logarithmical transformed biomass yield u sing stem diameter at 30 cm from ground level plus the plant height wi th r(2) values between 84 and 89%.