Morphological and molecular diversity analysis in bitter gourd

Abstract

A study was carried out to assess the morphological and molecular diversity in bitter gourd by using twenty genotypes. Multivariate analysis based on morphological traits grouped all the genotypes into 6 major clusters. Cluster I was having 8 genotypes and cluster II was having seven genotypes out of total genotypes used in this study. The other clusters were monogenotypic. The highest inter cluster distance was found between clusters V and VI. Moreover, cluster V was found superior on the basis of cluster means for maximum yield related traits. For molecular analysis, out of 30 SSR markers used, 6 were found to be polymorphic. PIC values varied from 0.22 to 0.94. From molecular characterization, two major clusters were formed in which economic genotypes were grouped into sub-cluster II A. The genotypes namely, CO-1, BRBT-1, Katahi and Jhalari were found to be in the same cluster in both multivariate analysis and molecular characterization.