GENETIC DIVERSITY OF MUSKMELON USING MULTIVARIATE TECHNIQUE

An experiment was conducted at the experimental farm of Plant Genetic Resources Centre (PGRC), Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), Gazipur in 2011 to estimate genetic diversity through multivariate technique. Based on multivariate analysis and application of covariance matrix for nonhierarchical clustering, 64 genotypes of muskmelon were grouped into six clusters to indicate the existence of considerable diversity among the genotypes. The cluster IV was consisted of single genotypes (BD2303). The highest number of genotypes possessed in Cluster I. The first principal axis largely accounted for the variation among the genotypes which alone contributed 25.65% of the variations. The highest inter genotypic distance (2.878) was observed between the genotypes BD2303 and BD2313 followed by the genotypes BD2303 and BD2314 (2.808).The highest intra cluster distance was computed for cluster III (0.839) followed by cluster I (0.751). Cluster VI showed the least intra cluster distance which indicated that the genotypes in this cluster were more or less homogeneous. The inter cluster distances were larger than the intra cluster distances suggesting wider genetic diversity among the genotypes of different clusters. Cluster mean pointed out the heavier fruit in cluster IV (2533.3g). The size of this cluster was also far different from all other clusters. Similarly, the highest total fruit weight per plant was found in cluster IV (13.5 kg) which was also far different from other clusters. So it revealed that genotypes of this cluster could be used for developing high yielding variety. Cluster VI showed the highest brix reading (5.6%). Therefore, the genotypes of this cluster could be used for the development of sweet muskmelon variety. Hybridization between the genotypes of cluster IV and those of cluster VI could develop high yielding sweet muskmelon variety(s).

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