Assessment of Genetic Diversity in Potato Germplasm for Spring Season Crop

One hundred ninety three germplasm accessions of potato (Solanum tuberosum ssp. tuberosum) germplasm, from eight countries, were evaluated for nine characters under long day (14–15 hrs) and high temperature (max.19.0–40°C and min. 7.0–25°C) conditions of spring crop. Experiment was laid out in a augmented incomplete block design with four potato varieties as checks. Significant variability was observed for majority of the characters among checks as well as test genotypes. Non-hierarchical Euclidean cluster analysis followed by principal component analysis led to the classification of 193 accessions into nine well-characterized groups. The maximum Euclidean distance was between cluster V and VIII followed by III and VIII. The cluster VIII was deemed good for selecting elite accessions as the genotypes gathered in this cluster were not only diverse from each other but also had the highest mean values for plant height (57.5 cm), inter-node length (3.42 cm), number of leaves/plant (112), average tuber weight (27.3 g) and tuber yield per plant (380 g). Six accessions, viz., CP1367, 1438, 1513, 1551, 1558 and 1588 were identified as genetically diverse and agronomically superior and thus recommended for exploitation in potato breeding programme for spring season.