Studies on genetic divergence in bitter gourd (Mormordica charantia L.)

Genetic divergence study was conducted by using 38 bitter gourd genotypes including two promising gynoecious lines for 17 characters. These genotypes were grouped into six clusters irrespective of geographic divergence, indicating no parallelism between geographic and genetic diversity. Cluster IV was very large containing 17 genotypes including some of the commercially released cultivars, while cluster IV was represented by two gynoecious lines. The maximum inter-cluster distance was obtained between cluster II and IV while minimum distance was between II and VI. Cluster IV followed by cluster III showed superiority for yield and other desirable traits, which indicate the potentiality of these diverse genotype collection for providing basic material for future breeding programmes as most of the commercially released cultivars were represented in cluster III.