Genetic diversity for curd yield and its attributes in late cauliflower

Abstract

Genetic diversity was studied in 26 genotypes of late group of cauliflower during winter 2018-19 and 2019- 20. Based on mean performance, DPCaCMS-1 produced significantly high marketable curd weight, 27.38% better than the best check. D2 analysis clustered the genotypes in seven clusters, with the maximum in Cluster I. Genotypes from clusters V and VI with higher inter-cluster genetic divergence would be a valuable source of genes for improvement. Cluster IV represented maximum mean values for marketable curd weight. The maximum contribution towards genetic diversity was made by days to curd initiation followed by leaves/plant and curd diameter. Principal component analysis indicated the five most informative principal components with more than one eigen value, accounting for 83.59% of the total variance for all traits. The genotypes, namely, DPCafW3, DPCaf US, DPCaCMS-1, DPCaCMS-2, DPCaf-1, DPCaCMS-3, DPCaf30, DPCaf13, and DPCafS5-1 seem to be the promising potential genotypes that can be involved in hybridization programmes to identify transgressive segregants with desirable attributes.