Interrelationship and multivariate analysis of floral and fruit attributes in brinjal

An experiment was conducted during autumn winter seasons 2014–2016 for evaluation of 21 brinjal genotypes for 21 characters. It was found that genotypic correlations were higher than the phenotypic correlation indicating a strong inherent association among the variables at genotypic level. Considering these traits as selection criteria, direct selection may be done to avoid indirect effects of the other characters for developing high yielding varieties. Both at the genotypic and phenotypic level, yield per plant had highly significant positive correlation with fruit weight, productive: non-productive flower ratio, number of primary branches per plant, fruit length, fruit peduncle length, number of fruits per plant, fruit diameter and plant circumference. The maximum positive direct effect was observed by fruit weight followed by plant circumference, number of fruits per plant. These traits influenced other components also towards yield per plant indirectly and may be considered for any future improvement programme for yield in brinjal. The first six PCs accounted for 79.7% cumulative variance. The PC1 added highly 25.5% to the total variability with significant loading of shoot tip circumference, ovary diameter, ovary weight and fruit diameter. BCB 4, BCB 8, BCB 9, BCB 10 and BCB 18 were found as genetically distant genotypes from others.