Acta Agriculturae Zhejiangensis ›› 2026, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (8): 1517-1528.DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1004-1524.20250285

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Diversity analysis and comprehensive evaluation of biochemical components of 35 accessions of tea plants in Guizhou Province, China

GUO Wei1(), MA Xiansen1, NIE Hongyan1, SONG Zhihao1, ZHOU Yi1, CHEN Guangxun1, CHEN Zhengwu2,*()   

  1. 1 Tea and Fruit Research Institute, Bijie Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Bijie 551700, Guizhou, China
    2 Guizhou Tea Research Institute, Guiyang 550006, China
  • Received:2025-04-07 Online:2026-08-25 Published:2026-09-14

Abstract:

To explore the quality characteristics of biochemical components in natural hybrid progenies derived from several local landraces and tea cultivar Huangjinya, and to supply theoretical references for future novel tea cultivar breeding, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was adopted to quantify 28 biochemical components across 35 tea accessions conserved in the germplasm nursery of Guizhou Tea Research Institute. Multiple statistical approaches including genetic diversity analysis, correlation analysis, principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis were integrated to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of all tested accessions. The results revealed that the average coefficient of variation (CV) of the 28 biochemical components reached 43.04%. Cysteine (Cys) content exhibited the maximum CV of 117.40%, while caffeine (CAF) content showed the minimum CV of 14.55%. The mean value of the genetic diversity index was 1.81; phenylalanine (Phe) content possessed the highest index value of 2.09, and gallocatechin gallate (GCG) content had the lowest value of 0.66. Overall, amino acid components presented relatively high genetic diversity indexes. Seven principal components were extracted via PCA, accounting for a cumulative variance contribution rate of 78.451%. Total catechins (TC), arginine (Arg), epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), glutamic acid (Glu), epicatechin gallate (ECG) and theanine (The) contents were identified as the core evaluation indicators. All tested accessions were divided into 4 groups by cluster analysis. Group Ⅳ, characterized by high amino acid contents as well as low alkaloid and catechin levels, obtained the optimal comprehensive score and possessed excellent suitability for manufacturing premium green tea. Based on the integrated evaluation results, 9 elite accessions represented by GT-AS-70 and GT-AS-83 were screened for developing green tea-specific cultivars.

Key words: tea plant resource, biochemical component, genetic diversity, principal component analysis, cluster analysis

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