Study of genetic divergence in tomato (solanum lycopersicum L.) genotypes

The present investigation was conducted at Horticulture Research Centre, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel University of Agriculture and Technology, Meerut (UP) 250110 during rabi season in 2018–19. During the study the analysis of variance for 36 genotypes of tomato in the randomized block design and revealed significant difference for all the 10 characters, this indicated the presence of wide spectrum of variability among the genotypes. The analysis of genetic divergence through Mahalanobis D2 statistics revealed that a considerable genetic diversity was found among genotypes. 36 genotypes of tomato were grouped into 7 clusters. Out of the 7 clusters, Cluster I had four genotypes, Cluster II had three genotypes, Cluster III had eight genotypes, Cluster IV had six genotypes, Cluster V had ten genotypes, Cluster VI had only one genotype and Cluster VII had four genotypes. Maximum inter cluster distance (9.303) was determined between clusters I and cluster VI so cross among genotypes of cluster I like VRT-29, VRT-52, VRT-58 and VRT-67 and genotype of cluster VI i.e. VRT-53 can be made as a parent for getting better hybrids.