Breeding potential of cucumber genotypes using d² analysis

Using Mahnlanobis D² statistics method, 45 genotypes were grouped into eight divergent clusters. It is desirable to select accession from clusters having high inter-cluster distance and with high fruit yield as parents in the recombination breeding programmes. Intra-cluster distance was highest in the cluster VIII and lowest in cluster IV. The cluster means were calculated for each character and ranks were given based on score obtained for all the characters of the clusters. Cluster VII with five genotypes ranked first for most of the characters and appeared to be containing the most potential genotypes. Similarly, other clusters (III, VIII and V) were next in ranking order.