Vol. 11, Issue 3 (2022)

Author(s):
Anusha Bhagwat, CN Hanchinamani, N Basavaraja, MS Kulkarni, Sandhyarani Nishani and Vijaykumar Rathod

Abstract:
Thirty four genotypes of bottle gourd collected from different indigenous sources were planted in randomized complete block design with two replications to study the genetic diversity among them. The genotypes were grouped into four clusters using Tocher’s method. Among four clusters, the cluster I was the largest, comprising of 31 genotypes. While Cluster II, Cluster III cluster IV had one genotype each. Genotypes usually did not clustered according to geographical distributions. There was no direct relationship between geographical distribution and genetic distance. Based on distances between clusters, the maximum divergence was observed between cluster II and cluster IV followed by cluster III and IV. The clusters have been formed based on the contribution of different characters to the divergence. Therefore, the hybridization between the genotypes of these cluster can be made for getting superior hybrids or recombinants in segregating populations. Number of seeds per fruit contributed maximum (61.68%) to the genetic diversity among the characters followed by 100 seeds weight (9.63%).