Analysis of sunflower data from a multi-attribute genotype ^×environment trial in Brazil

In multi-environment trials it is common to measure several response variables or attributes to determine the genotypes with the best characteristics. Thus it is important to have techniques to analyse multivariate multi-environment trial data. The main objective is to complement the literature on two multivariate techniques, the mixture maximum likelihood method of clustering and three-mode principal component analysis, used to analyse genotypes, environments and attributes simultaneously. In this way, both global and detailed statements about the performance of the genotypes can be made, highlighting the benefit of using three-way data in a direct way and providing an alternative analysis for researchers. We illustrate using sunflower data with twenty genotypes, eight environments and three attributes. The procedures provide an analytical procedure which is relatively easy to apply and interpret in order to describe the patterns of performance and associations in multivariate multi-environment trials.