Abstract

The main purpose of Germplasm Banks is to secure a wide diversity of crop plants, including their wild relatives and lesser-used species, in accessible conservation systems. They also aim to increase the possibilities of plant breeding and seed supply worldwide in order to meet the challenges of climate change and food demand. In this way, the continuous availability of plant genetic resources for research, technological development, reproduction and improvement of the seed supply for a sustainable agricultural system is ensured. For the analysis of these databases, a large number of statistical methods are available, which are not all known and do not always respond to the researcher’s needs. This article reviews the main methods of Three-Way Multivariate Analysis, presenting its advantages and disadvantages depending on the study situation. These results are based on research projects and postgraduate theses supervised from the Department of Statistics of the National University of Comahue, Patagonia Argentina.

Keywords:Germplasm bank; Three mode data analysis; Multiway set of data structure; Genotype-environment interaction; Agronomic and molecular characters