The objective of the present work was to access the implications of the use of analysis of importance of characters in the elimination of appraised characters for calculating genetic distance of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) progenies in early generations. The experiments were carried out in plastic house (seedling generation) and in the field (first clonal generations) at Embrapa Temperate Climate, Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul State in autumn 2004 and 2005. The study was demonstrated the efficiency of the analysis in importance of characters for reducing the number of characters necessary for classifying potato progenies in relation to the dissimilarity. Tuber shape was the character with the largest efficiency for the dissimilarity study in potato progenies.
Solanum tuberosum L.; relative contribution of characters
