Genetic Divergence Analysis of Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L. Moench)

Genetic divergence of 24 okra genotypes studied using Mahalanobis D² statistics revealed that considerable genetic diversity was found among genotypes in okra. Twenty four diverse genotypes were grouped into five clusters with the highest of 9 genotypes in the cluster III, 4 in the cluster I, Cluster II and Cluster V and 3 in cluster IV. Intra and inter cluster D² values ranged from 4.663 to 22.662 and 11.375 to 76.245, respectively. It showed that inter cluster distance was higher than the intra cluster distance indicating wide genetic diversity among the genotypes of different groups. Cluster means for different traits indicated considerable differences between the clusters. Cluster II and IV had in general medium mean performance for most of the characters. Maximum cluster means for fruit yield per plant was observed in cluster IV (329.649) followed by cluster II (241.906). Primary branches per plant (42.03%) contributed maximum contribution towards total divergence, while minimum contribution was reflected by days to 50% flowering (0.36%) and plant height (0.72%).