MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION, GENETIC VARIABILITY AND PHENOTYPIC DIVERSITY ANALYSIS IN BRINJAL (Solanum melongena L.) GENOTYPES

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted to evaluate twenty brinjal genotypes by calculate thesignificance of variation, heritability, genetic advance, correlation, path coefficient andgenetic diversity for thirteen yield contributing characters. The experiment was executed following Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with threereplications at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka, from August 2019 to March 2020. In this experiment, significant differences were exhibited among the existing genotypes for all characters. Higher Phenotypic Co-efficient of Variation(PCV) than the Genotypic Co-efficient of Variation (GCV) were observed for allcharacters. Highest PCV (59.24) and GCV (58.58) were observed for % of infestedfruit. High heritability associated with high genetic advance in percentage of mean werefound with all the character except days to 1 st flowering, days to 1 st fruiting, and daysto 1 st harvesting which indicating selection on the basis of phenotype would beeffective. At genotypic level, number of primary brunches per plant (0.355), number ofsecondary brunches per plant (0.356), and fruit diameter (0.494) exhibited highlysignificant and positive correlation with yield per plant. Path analysis revealed that thenumber of flowers per plant (2.616) had the maximum positive and direct effect onyield per plant. Through genetic diversity, 20 brinjal genotypes were grouped into fourcluster. The cluster I containing the maximum number of genotypes (7) followed byCluster II (6), IV (4), and III (3). Maximum intra-cluster distance was exhibited bycluster I (1.74), whereas the highest value for inter-cluster distance was observedbetween Cluster I and Cluster III (32.04). Mean performance of cluster showed thehighest yield per plant (1.62) value in cluster IV. Therefore, considering the magnitudeof genetic distance, contribution of character towards divergence, magnitude of cluster mean performance and agronomic performance the genotype G8 (Ventura), G15 (Bt),and G17 (Kustia 2) from cluster I, G12 (Pirgonj) from cluster III, and G16 (Avo round)along with G18 (Altapon) from cluster IV would be considered as better parents forfuture hybridization programs.