The objective of this work was to select morphological and agronomic quantitative descriptors to characterize accessions of euterpe palm for the production of fruits and to evaluate the efficiency of descriptors selection. Twenty-eight descriptors were used, including seven characters from plant, four from flowering, six from fruits, and eleven agronomic traits, evaluated in 87 accessions from 21 origins, at Embrapa Amazônia Oriental Collection, in Belém, PA, Brazil. Data were submitted to the principal components analysis, using the standardized average Euclidian distance. The selection of the descriptors was accomplished based on information from two procedures. Their efficiency was compared by groups formed among the 28 selected characters using the Tocher method. In the first criterion, ten descriptors were selected, and in the second 21 descriptors, but 22 were considered important in the two methods, representing a reduction of 21.43% of the evaluated traits. There was no loss of information. Therefore, seven characters from plant, three from flowering, three from fruits, and nine agronomic traits are important descriptors in the evaluation of euterp palm germplasm to fruits.
Euterpe oleracea; análise multivariada; componente principal
