Genetic Diversity Analysis by Using Morphological Approaches in Bottle Gourd [lagenaria Siceraria (Molina) Standl.] Germplasm in India

Abstract

The present investigation was conducted at Horticulture Research Centre, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel University of Agriculture and Technology, Meerut (UP) 250110 during Zaid season in 2019. During the study the analysis of variance for 31 genotypes of Bottle gourd in the randomized block design and revealed significant difference for all the 17 characters, this indicated the presence of wide spectrum of variability among the genotypes. The phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) was higher than the respective genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) for all the traits, a narrow difference between PCV and GCV were recorded for all of the traits. High heritability and genetic advance as per cent of mean were observed for all seventeen characters. The highest heritability was recorded in number of leaves per plant and lowest for duration of crop. Correlation coefficient studies indicated that genotypic correlation coefficient were found to be higher than phenotypic correlation coefficients for most of the characters, indicating a strong inherent association between various characters and significantly affected by environmental components in regard to phenotypic expression. Fruit yield expressed highly significant and positive correlation with vine length, internodes length, nodes per plant, leaf per plant, primery branches per plant, numer of fruits per plant and fruit weight which implies that these characters were the primer contributing factors to fruit yield. All the combination of traits should be considered, while breeding programme for selecting high yielding genotypes and suitable for breeders to achieving improved plant type. Path coffecient analysis revealed that highest positive direct effect on yield per hectare was observed on days to first flower initiation, followed by vine length, plant germination, internodes length, fruit weight, number of primary branches, fruit length. Improvement of these characters might be improved. The analysis of genetic divergence through Mahalanobis D2 statistics revealed that a considerable genetic diversity was found among genotypes. 31 genotypes of bottle gourd were grouped into 6 clusters. Out of the 138 6 clusters, Cluster VI had eight genotypes, Cluster III had seven genotypes, Cluster I had six genotypes, Cluster IV had five genotypes, Cluster V had three genotypes and Cluster II had only two genotypes. Based on present investigation, it was concluded that in general, there was parallelism between genetic and geographic diversity. Maximum inter cluster distance was determined between clusters I and cluster IV so crosses among genotypes of cluster I like IC337078 and IC392392 with the genotypes of cluster IV like IC047045, IC331981, IC342077, IC592210 and Pasa Naveen can be made as a parent for getting better hybrids.