GENETIC DIVERGENCE AND CLUSTER ANALYSIS IN TOMATO (SOLANUM LYCOPERSICUM L.).

Present investigation was carried out at AICRP on Vegetable Crops, OUAT, Bhubaneswar, Odisha to assess the value and magnitude of genetic divergence among the genotypes using Mahalanobis D2 statistics. About fifty five genotypes were evaluated for 17 growth, yield and quality traits which were grouped into nineteen clusters. Cluster V topped in having maximum of 11 genotypes followed by cluster I with nine and cluster XVIII with three genotypes while cluster II, III, IV, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII and XIX were monotypic. The maximum inter-cluster distance was noticed between cluster XIII and XVIII (D2=15603.23) followed by cluster XI and cluster XVIII (D2=13232.33). Therefore, selection of divergent parents of tomato based on these cluster distances would be useful in formulating a comprehensive strategy to develop superior hybrids or better segregants in tomato. On the basis of the present study, superior hybrids or variety (s) may be expected by crossing parents selected from cluster XIII (BT-19-1-1-1 X BT-22-4-1, BT-22-4-1 ) with parents of cluster XVIII (Utkal Kumari X BT-19-1-1-1, Utkal Kumari X BT-317, Utkal Kumari X BT-3).