Genetic diversity study in ivy gourd [Coccinia grandis (L.) Voigt. ]

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to study the genetic diversity in ivy gourd [Coccinia grandis (L.) Voigt.] genotypes collected from different parts of Assam and other North Eastern States (Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura and Nagaland) during the summer seasons of 2013 and 2014. Among the 6 clusters the intra-cluster distance varied from 0.00 to 3.48 and maximum inter-cluster distance was observed between cluster IV and cluster V (7.83). Cluster IV showed desirable values for number of primary branches (6.66), peduncle length (2.27 cm), fruit length (7.10 cm), number of fruits per plant (302.83), fruit weight (28.92 g) and yield per plant (7.55 kg). The most important characters contributing towards divergence were fruit weight (37.23% contribution) followed by number of fruits per plant (30.30%). D2 analysis revealed that the pattern of distribution of genotypes from different locations into different cluster was random