The association between leaf nutrients of Raphia palm (Raphia spp.) and soil properties in Southern Nigeria using canonical correlation analyses

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Abstract

The association between leaf and soil nutrients of Raphia palm in Nigeria was studied using Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA). The Leaf and soil nutrients examined were N, P, K, Ca, Mg, S, Fe, Mn, Cu, Zn and B. The estimated canonical correlations showed that the first four pairs of canonical variates were significant (P < 0.01), while their canonical correlation revealed presence of high significant correlation (1.0000) between leaf and soil nutrients. The redundancy index calculated for the first four canonical variate for both the dependent variables and independent variables were equally high (13.97, 6.88, 8.49, 10.96) and (4.85, 6.18, 8.50, 5.14) respectively, showing that substantial percentage of the variance in leaf characteristics were accounted for by variability in soil properties. The canonical cross – loading used to provide meaning for the canonical variates showed that Ca, Fe, Cu, Zn and B in soil have significant effects on Ca and B of leaf for the first pair canonical variates. Similarly, K, Mg and Fe in soil have significant effects on P and K in leaf for the second pair canonical variates, while Mg, Fe, Mn, B in soil have significant effects on N, Ca, S, Mn, Zn and B of leaf in the third pair canonical variates. N, K and S of soil have significant effects on P, K, and B in leaf. These Results indicated that nutrient contents of leaf depend on the capacity of the soil to make nutrients available to plants for uptake and the ability of the plants to take up the available nutrient. This study has enabled us to eliminate possible Type 1 error permitted by the cross- product moment correlation analysis and highlight the importance of canonical correlation analysis as a statistical tool for the analyses between two sets of variable, and permitted a better understanding of the relationships between leaf and soil nutrients of the Raphia Palm in Southern Nigeria.

Keywords: Raphia palm, simple correlation, canonical correlation, leaf nutrients, soil properties

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