Assessment of genetic divergence among Indian genotypes of pomegranate for economic traits

Abstract

The efficacy of pomegranate improvement for higher productivity as well as fruit quality can be achieved by selecting superior parental combinations made between divergent clones. The nature and magnitude of genetic divergence was assessed for 35 quantitative traits using Mahalanobis D2 analysis in 23 popular Indian pomegranate genotypes. Interestingly, peel weight followed by seed width had higher contribution to the diversity among the selected genotypes. Tocher’s method of cluster analysis grouped all the cultivars into four distinct clusters. Genotypes falling in clusters II and III were highly diverse from each other. Mean value for most of the fruits and aril parameters were highest in cluster III, a solitary cluster comprising of the most popular cultivar Ganesh followed by cluster I consisting of a commercial pomegranate cultivars like Bhagwa and its clones. The wider variations for different traits among the clusters in the selected pomegranate cultivars shows that genotypes from desirable clusters could be directly used in breeding experiments for the desirable traits of interest depending upon the breeding objectives.