Genetic divergence study in brinjal (Solanum melongena L.)

Abstract

Genetic divergence in brinjal was studied through non-hierarchical Euclidean cluster analysis. The results showed the presence of sufficient amount of genetic diversity among 110 genotypes of brinjal. The cluster analysis grouped all 110 brinjal genotypes into 8 major clusters based on D2 value. Maximum numbers of genotypes were grouped into cluster VI including twenty eight genotypes. The maximum intra cluster distance was observed in cluster IV (3.784) closely followed by cluster VII (3.148) indicating maximum diversity within these clusters, while minimum intra cluster distance was observed in cluster II. The maximum inter cluster value (9.061) was obtained between cluster II and IV and minimum diversity was observed between cluster V and VI (2.426) which suggested that members of these two clusters are genetically very close. The genotypes of heterogeneous origin are grouped together in some of the major clusters suggesting no parallelism between geographical and genetic diversity suggesting thereby that parents should be selected on the basis of total divergence for the characters used for an overall improvement in the yield.