Multivariate models for identification of elite mother bushes with high commercial potential for black tea from mature seedling fields of Camellia sinensis

Tea producers are in demand of new high yielding cultivars, which produce high quality tea liquors. To breed for these phenotypic traits is challenging due to their polygenic disposition and influence by environment. Two C. sinensis populations, namely Comm cultivars from open pollinated field selections, and NComm cultivars from the reciprocal cross of two parents were used. These cultivars were employed to identify the metabolites responsible for distinguishing Comm cultivars, with high yield, high quality and DT from NComm cultivars that did not show these traits. PCA and PLS-DA models were constructed on UPLC/DAD data, which showed clear separation between the Comm and NComm cultivars. CHAID decision trees constructed aimed to classify the 303 genotypes as either Comm or NComm cultivars using subset of compounds. Breeders can predict the quality of new selections from mature seedling fields by employing CHAID decision trees, or the CAF/EC ratio, as predictors.