Determination of Genetic Diversity in Morphological Traits of Mango Genotypes Using D2 Statistics

Abstract

An experiment was conducted during 2018-2020 to study the genetic diversity in 24 morphological traits using D² statistics in mango genotypes of eastern tropical region of India. The study aims to determine the variability present among the mango genotypes which enables utilization of high genetic divergence among parents in the breeding program.   Present study reveals that the clustering pattern based on D² statistics grouped 40 genotypes of mango into 7 clusters, out of which cluster VI (7397.45) shows the highest intra cluster value followed by cluster III (5346.99) and cluster V (4130.4), indicating considerable genetic divergence among the accessions of this cluster. While maximum inter- cluster distance was observed between the cluster VI and VII (300180) followed by cluster II and VI (289267.7) and cluster I and VI (214380.5) indicated that the accessions belonging to these groups were genetically most diverse and can be used as a parent in hybridization programme.  Wide range of genetic diversity observed among cluster VI and cluster VII, can either be utilized for breeding programmes for genetic improvement in mango or directly adopted as a variety. Fruit yield exhibited significant contribution towards the genetic divergence (60.77%) followed by fruit weight (26.79%), stone percentage (4.74%), peel percentage (2.31%) and pulp percentage (2.05%).