Diversity Studies In Bird’s Eye Chilli (Capsicum Frutescens L.) Accessions

Abstract

A study on genetic diversity was conducted with 36 bird's eye chilli (Capsicum frutescens L.) accessions through Mohalanobis D 2 and principal component analysis for twenty seven quantitative characters viz., plant height, number of primary branches per plant, days to first flowering, days to 50% flowering, days taken for flowering to fruit set, days taken for physiological maturity, number of fruits per plant from five pickings, fruit length, fruit width, fruit yield per plant, fresh and dry weight of 100 fruits, number of seeds per fruit, 1000 seed weight, weight of seeds per fruit, fruit to seed ratio, yield quintal per hectare, pedicel length, vitamin-C, capsaicin, oleoresin and capsanthin contents were taken into consideration. Cluster analysis was used for grouping of 36 accessions and the accessions were fallen into six clusters. Cluster VI had maximum (14) and cluster III had the minimum number (1) of accessions. The highest inter-cluster distance was observed between cluster II and IV and the least between cluster II and III. The character dry weight of 100 fruits contributed maximum to the genetic diversity. It is desirable to select accessions from the clusters having high inter cluster distance for the future breeding program.