Genetic diversity for horticultural traits in vegetable mustard (Brassica juncea)

Abstract

This research was conducted to study the extent of genetic variability and character association for yield and other horticultural traits along with the estimation of genetic divergence among 101 diverse genotypes of vegetable mustard. Analysis of variance indicated significant differences among all the genotypes for all the characters studied. PCV and GCV were high for various traits, i.e., total anthocyanin content (89.07, 85.91%), number of secondary branches per plant (30.39, 29.85%), total phenol content (28.93, 25.78%) and number of primary branches per plant (24.02, 22.92%), respectively. High heritability estimates were recorded for ascorbic acid content (98.44%) followed by number of leaves per plant (97.65%), number of secondary branches per plant (96.48%) anthocyanin content (93.01%), number of primary branches per plant (91.00%), yield per plant (88.44%), leaf length (88.36%), plant height (85.73%) and total phenol content (79.41%). The correlation studies revealed that yield per plot had a positive and significant correlation with yield per plant and plant height at both genotypic and phenotypic levels (0.512, 0.207 and 0.414, 0.187, respectively). The path coefficient analysis revealed the maximum positive direct effect towards yield per plot by leaf length (0.591) followed by yield per plant (0.538). The first six principal components resulted in 64.925% of the total variance for all the characteristics. On the basis of genetic divergence studies, 101 genotypes were grouped into six clusters and the highest inter-cluster distance was recorded between cluster VI and cluster III (7.755).