Assessing Genetic Variability of Snake Gourd (Trichasanthes Cucumerina Var. Anguina L.) Germplasm Through Morphological Characterization and Multivariate Analysis

Abstract

Genetic divergence analysis is important for selecting genetically varied parents from existing germplasm for a successful breeding program. An investigation with thirty-three snake gourd germplasm was evaluated to assess their diversity using several qualitative and quantitative characters. Of the qualitative characters maximum variations were observed in fruit shape, fruit curvature, fruit skin color, and fruit skin lustre. The highest quantitative variation was observed in yield per plot (CV-49.44%), which was influenced by the higher number of fruit yields per plant (CV-49.22%). The first principal component (PC1) explained 30.6% while the second PC showed 18.3% of the total variability among the evaluated snake gourd germplasm. The clustering study classified them into five groupings based on twelve quantitative charac-ters where the most accessions (11) were under cluster V followed by cluster II (10). The max-imum cluster mean value was observed in cluster IV for the characters of fruit length (36.44 cm), number of fruits per plant (11.60), fruit yield per plant (2.34 kg), and yield per plot (9.37 kg). The snake gourd germplasm such as N-170, LAH-68, AHI-99, R-1, KI-36, AC-423 and AC-187 performed as wide variations according to biplot analysis while AC-118, and AR-39, AHI-104, AHI-99, AC-187, AC-357 superior through cluster analysis. Finally, the identified desirable traits from the prominent germplasm can be used for advancing the high-yielding va-rieties.