Indian Journal of Horticulture

An experiment was conducted to study the differences of various fruit quality parameters between the Spring-Summer (February-June) and Autumn-Winter (September-March) seasons and the extent of variation contributed by the fruit quality parameters with 40 eggplant germplasm with the help of Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Two factorial ANOVA showed highly significant differences for total sugars, vitamin-A, anthocyanin in the peel, total phenols and DPPH free radical scavenging capacity for the two factors viz., genotypes (G) and season (S) and their interaction (G X S). Paired t-test also confirmed the seasonal differences for all the fruit quality traits. First four Principal components (PCs), cumulatively contributing 74.4% of total variation, were selected. The first PC contributed 27.9% of total variation and was highly loaded with total phenols, vitamin-C and DPPH free radical scavenging capacity. TSS and total sugars; total phenols and DPPH free radical scavenging capacity; and moisture content and vitamin C were significantly positively correlated pairs. Vitamin-C had a significant negative association with total phenols and DPPH free radical scavenging capacity. Anthocyanin in the peel and phenol based DPPH free radical scavenging capacity were also negatively correlated. No outlier was found and the genotypes Kalo Makra, BCB-123 and KS-8103 had the maximum distance from the centroid indicating their diverse nature.