GENETIC DIVERSITY ANALYSIS OF GREEN CHILI (Capsicum frutescens L.)

Abstract

The present research work was conducted to study the characterization and genetic diversity analysis of green chili during the period from October 2019 to March 2020 in rabi season in the experimental field of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka 1207. In this experiment 20 chili genotypes were used as experimental material in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among genotypes for different characters studied. The highest phenotypic co-efficient of variation (70.09) and genotypic co-efficient of variation (69.64) was found in yield per plant (g). High heritability coupled with high genetic advance and genetic advance in percentage of mean was found in yield per plant (g) which indicated predominance of additive gene expression on this character and direct phenotypic selection of this character. The genotypic correlation coefficients were higher than the corresponding phenotypic correlation coefficients, indicating strong inherent association between the characters under studied. Investigation on character association indicating that yield per plant had the highest significant positive correlation with individual fruit weight in both genotypic and phenotypic level. Path analysis revealed that plant height (cm), number of primary branches and individual fruit weight (g) showed positive direct effect on yield per plant (g) indicating that direct selection based on these traits. Principal component analysis identified three principal components, which contributed 68.06% of cumulative variance. The 20 genotypes were grouped into five different clusters. The highest intra-cluster distance was computed for cluster V. The maximum inter cluster divergence was observed between cluster III and V and the lowest was between cluster I and II. Therefore, considering the magnitude of genetic distance, contribution of character towards divergence, magnitude of cluster mean and agronomic performance the genotypes G18 from cluster V for number of primary branches, G14 from cluster IV for individual fruit weight (g) and days to first harvest and G5, G11 and G13 from cluster III for yield per plant might be considered better parents for future hybridization programme.