Dioscorea praehensilis Benth. is a semi-wild yam species and a valuable source of resistance trait genes. To access the agronomic and tuber quality performance, eleven quantitative phenotypic traits were used to discriminate and identify promising accessions among 162 accessions of D. praehensilis collected in Ghana. Significant and high genetic variability (p < 0.001) for all eleven quantitative traits was found among the evaluated accessions. Moderate broad-sense heritability (H2) (30–60%) was observed for all the evaluated quantitative traits except the response to YMV and tuber hardness. The accessions were clustered into three groups; each cluster displayed genotypes with good potentiality for the different traits evaluated. Path coefficient analysis revealed positive contributions (p < 0.01) of the number of tubers per plant, tuber length, tuber width, stem internode length, number of internodes, and tuber flesh hardness to the total tuber weight per plant. Through the multi-trait genotype–ideotype distance index (MGIDI), 24 accessions were identified from the 162 evaluated accessions as top-ranking and could be used as progenitors for trait introgression. The results of this study provide insight for future yam breeding and improvement programs in West Africa.

https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy13030682

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Adeyinka Adewumihttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-5981-1882

idris adejumobihttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-6533-0612

Jean Mondohttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-7197-6551

Paterne AGREhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-1231-2530

https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy13030682

Biotech and Plant Breeding

Agronomy

Dioscorea; Quantitative Trait Loci; Breeding; Genotypes; Ghana

Africa; West Africa

Ghana

Headquarters and Western Africa Hub

Agronomy