Abstract

This study adopted the multivariate methods to analyze a set of data on the proximate composition of fufu flours processed from 43 different Cassava Mosaic Disease (CMD) resistant varieties from International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Onne, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The factor analysis of the data showed that four components were significant (P < 0.05) for reducing and detecting the structure of the data. Seventy eight percent of the total variance was explained by these core components. The first component accounted for 26.37% of the total variance, the second 21.90%, the third 15.43% and the fourth 14.77%. The scree plot of data lent credence to the four components retained.

Key words: Factor analysis, multivariate methods, principal component, proximate composition, scree plot, cassava varieties, cassava mosaic disease.