Application of Principal Component Analysis in Assessment of Relation Between the Parameters of Technological Quality of Wheat Grains Treated with Inert Dusts Against Rice Weevil (Sitophilus oryzae L.)

Quality parameters of several wheat grain lots (low vitreous and high vitreous grains,non-infested and infested with rice weevils, (Sitophilus oryzae L.) treated with inert dusts(natural zeolite, two diatomaceous earths originating from Serbia and a commercial productProtect-It ) were investigated. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to investigatethe classification of treated grain lots and to assess how attributes of technological qualitycontribute to this classification. This research showed that vitreousness (0.95) and test weight(0.93) contributed most to the first principal component whereas extensigraph area (-0.76)contributed to the second component. The determined accountability of the total variabilityby the first component was around 55%, while with the second it was 18%, which meansthat those two dimensions together account for around 70% of total variability of the observedset of variables. Principal component analysis (PCA) of data set was able to distinguishamong the various treatments of wheat lots. It was revealed that inert dust treatments producedifferent effects depending on the degree of endosperm vitreousness.