Morphological diversity of eggplant (Solanum melongena) in Bangladesh

Morphological diversity in 92 eggplant genotypes based on twenty one characters was estimated using Mahalanobis’s D² statistics. The highest intra-cluster distance was observed in cluster VIII (2.13), containing seven genotypes and the lowest intra-cluster distance (1.18) was observed in cluster IV having four genotypes. Ninety two eggplant genotypes were grouped into ten different clusters by non-hierarchical clustering. The cluster X had the maximum number (17) of genotypes and cluster II and III had minimum number (3) of genotypes. The highest inter-cluster distance was observed between cluster II and VIII (30.86) indicated the genotypes in these clusters were more diverged than those of other clusters. The lowest inter-cluster distance was observed between the clusters V and X (3.72) suggesting a close relationship among the genotypes included within these clusters. Cluster II constitute three genotypes and produced the highest mean value for number of flowers per inflorescence (4.67) and yield per plant (812.33) and the lowest mean value days to 1st flowering (108.22). Cluster IV constitute three genotypes namely EP-080, EP-081, EP-089 and produced fruits for longer duration (82.33). Cluster VIII constitute seven genotypes and showed the lowest mean value for number of infected shoots per plant (1.57). Cluster X established with 17 genotypes produced the lowest mean value for number of infected fruit per plant (8.26). Therefore, more emphasis should be given on cluster II, IV and VIII for selecting genotypes as parents for crossing which may produce new recombinants with desired traits.