Vol. 11, Issue 4 (2022)

Author(s):
Amit Kumar Bhargava, RB Ram and Prem Kumar

Abstract:
The present investigations was carried out in two years with aims to Estimation of genetic divergence (D2) involving 10 lines (NDBG-504, NDBG-509, NDBG-517, NDBG-522, NDBG-601, NDBG-603, NDBG-749-2, NDBG-11, NDBG-10, Narendra Rashmi), 4 testers (Pusa Naveen, NDBG-624, NDBG-S-5, NDBG-104) of bottle gourd and their 40 F1 hybrids produced in L × T fashion at Horticulture Research Farm, Department of Applied Plant Science (Horticulture), Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow (U.P.) India during Zaid 2017-18 and 2018-19. Genetic divergence was assessed among 4 testers and their 40 F1 hybrids of bottle gourd for eighteen quantitative characters using Mahalanobis’ D2 statistics. The genotypes were grouped into eight clusters. Clustering pattern of the genotypes of heterogeneous origin, indicating no parallelism between genetic and geographical diversity. All the parents and F1’s were grouped into eight clusters with different genotypes in both the seasons which suggested that there were ample diversity within the experimental material. Reducing sugars in Y1 and total soluble solids in Y2 contributed maximum contribution towards total divergence while, minimum contribution was reflected by days to first pistillate flower anthesis and total sugars in both the years the lines/crosses between the genotypes of clusters with high inter cluster distance with that of distant clusters may give rise desirable segregants.