Study of morphological characters of parents and its hybrids of eggplant (<em>Solanum melongena</em> L.)

Abstract

Brinjal or eggplant belongs to family nightshade (solanaceae) is one of the most popular and widely grown vegetable in India. Eggplant is a good source of minerals and vitamins in the tropical diets. Assessment of genetic resources is the starting point of any crop improvement programme. Present investigation was carried out in brinjal crop to study the frequency distributions of 15 morphological characters namely plant growth habit, plant branching, stem pigmentation, leaf blade colour, leaf blade length, leaf blade width, leaf blade lobing, leaf prickle, flowering habit, flower colour, stigma colour, fruit shape, fruit curved, fruit apex shape and fruit colour showed wide range of variable characters. Most of genotypes showed intermediate growth habit, purple stem pigment, green stem colour, intermediate leaf lobbing. Most of genotypes were early to mid-early flowering and were born in three patterns i.e. solitary,cyme and mixed (both solitary and cyme). The fruit shape was observed to variable and found oblong, round, medium long and long. The genotypes fell into six fruit colour groups namely green, purple, white and light purple. The wide regional variations for plant, flower and fruit descriptors revealed enough scope for improvement of yield characters by selection. The genetic differences among the landraces are potentially relevant to breeding programmes in that the variability created through hybridization of the contrasting forms could be exploited.