Genetic divergence in eggplant (Solanum melongena L.)

Genetic divergence in brinjal was studied through nonhierarchical Euclidean cluster analysis. The results showed the presence of sufficient amount of genetic diversity as all the 192 test genotypes were grouped into five different clusters. Estimates of intra-cluster distances ranged from 0.00–2.99. It wasmaximum in cluster I andminimum in cluster V. The maximum inter-cluster value (18.031) was obtained between cluster II and V. Minimum diversity was observed between cluster I and III (2.869) which suggested that members of these two clusters are genetically very close. The genotypes of heterogeneous origin are grouped together in some of the major clusters suggesting no parallelism between geographical and genetic diversity suggesting thereby that parents should be selected on the basis of total divergence for the characters used for an overall improvement in the yield.