Genetic Divergence in Bitter Gourd

The genetic divergence among 36 genotypes of bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.) was determined through PCA, PCO, CVA, Cluster analysis (CLSA) and Mohalanobis’s D analysis. Through multivariate analysis based on 22 characters 36 genotypes were grouped into six distant clusters. Cluster VI includes maximum genotypes (12) followed by cluster I (6) and cluster II (6). Cluster V, cluster III and cluster I comprised 5, 4 and 3 genotypes respectively. The inter-cluster distances were higher than the intra-cluster distances. The inter-cluster distance was maximum between cluster III and IV (28.71) followed by the distance between cluster I and cluster IV (23.61). The intra-cluster distances in all the 6 clusters were more or less low indicating the closeness of genotypes within the same cluster. The highest intra-cluster distance was observed for cluster III (1.84) followed by the cluster I (1.38). The genotypes within the same clusters were collected from different places and genotypes collected in the same place fall in different cluster, which indicated that genetic divergence are not dependent on its geographical position from where the genotypes were collected. The genetic diversity of 36 genotypes was also assessed through PCA. The first three components accounted for 60.04% of the total variation. Days to first male flower opening, number of primary branches per vine, fruit yield per vine, days to green fruit maturity, seed weight per fruit mature seed width had the highest contribution towards the divergence. Cluster diagram exhibited that the genotypes include in the cluster III were far diverse from the genotypes of cluster IV while the genotypes belonging to the cluster II and VI were least diversed.