Studies on genetic diversity in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.)

Abstract

Sixty tomato genotypes were evaluated during Rabi, 2015 at Horticultural Research Station, Venkataramannagudem, West Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh to study the genetic diversity. Multivariate analysis following D2 statistics revealed that considerable genetic diversity exists within and among the eight clusters. Genetic diversity studies for twenty attributes with respect to growth, earliness, yield and ToLCV resistance for sixty genotypes of tomato revealed that average fruit weight contributed maximum towards divergence followed by number of fruits per plant and number of locules per fruit. The sixty genotypes were grouped into eight clusters, among which cluster VII was the largest group comprising of 20 genotypes, followed by cluster II with thirteen genotypes, cluster I with ten genotypes, cluster V with eight genotypes, cluster VIII with six genotypes and cluster III, IV and VI were monotypic or solitary. The intra cluster distance varied from 0 to 382.80 and cluster VIII recorded highest intra cluster distance (382.80) followed by cluster V (271.17), cluster VII (215.88), cluster II (154.35) and cluster I (98.04).. Highest inter cluster distance (1296.49) was between cluster V and VIII, while the lowest (130.38) was between cluster I and VI. The inter cluster distance was minimum between cluster I and VI indicating narrow genetic diversity, where as the inter cluster distance was maximum between V and VIII followed by II and VIII (852.84) indicating wider genetic diversity between these groups. Selection of parents from these diverse clusters for hybridization would help in achieving novel recombinants