Author(s):

Lal Vijay Singh, Diwaker Singh, Amit Kumar Singh, Dharmender Singh, and NK Tiwari

Abstract: The experiment was conducted in Randomized Block Design with three replications. In present investigation 54 genotypes (10 lines + 4 testers + 40 F₁’s) of bottle gourd were grouped into 8 distinct non over lapping clusters. This indicated presence of considerable diversity in the genotypes. The clusters contained genotypes of heterogenous origin. The genotypes of same geographic region were also found to be grouped together in the same clusters. Thus, there was no consistent relationship between genetic divergence and geographical distribution. Cluster III had maximum number of genotypes (29) followed by cluster I with nineteen genotypes, while rest of the six clusters contains mono genotypes. The intra cluster D² values ranged from 0.00 (cluster II, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII) to 573.59 (cluster III), while the inter cluster D² values ranged from 297.08 (cluster IV and V) to 3833.71 (cluster VII and VIII). The inter cluster distances between cluster VI to cluster VIII (3702.30) and cluster IV to cluster VIII (3321.49) were also very high. The higher inter cluster distance indicated greater genetic divergences between the genotypes of those clusters, while lower inter cluster values between the clusters suggested that the genotypes of the cluster were not much genetically diverse from each other. Cluster VI showed the maximum means values for days to first staminate flower anthesis, days to first pistillate flower anthesis, node number to first staminate flower, node number to first pistillate flower, days to first fruit harvest, vine length at last picking stage, fruit length and ascorbic acid whereas, cluster VII showed maximum mean values for fruit yield per plant and some other traits too. The results suggested that crosses between selected lines/F₁ from widely separated clusters are most likely to give desirable recombinants/hybrids.

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