Assessment of genetic diversity in ivy gourd [Coccinia grandis (L.) Voigt.] genotypes of North East India using RAPD markers

Genetic diversity studied in 22 ivy gourd genotypes of Assam and other North Eastern states (Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Tripura) one from IIVR, Varanasi, at the Experimental Farm, Department of Horticulture, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat revealed that 25 random decamer primers at molecular level generated a total of 124 amplification products of which 52 bands were polymorphic. Total polymorphism was 41.94 percent. The extent of polymorphism was higher with RAPD primers such as OPB-08 (83.33%), OPC-01 (71.43%) and OPD-05 (66.66%). The dendrogram showed that UPGMA cluster analysis grouped the genotypes into 4 major clusters. IG-14, the only one genotype in cluster one was out grouped from the rest of the genotypes. A fairly wide range of Jaccard's similarity coefficient (0.10 to 1.09) indicating high level of genetic diversity was observed. RAPD analysis revealed that for assessment of genetic diversity in ivy gourd, the primers OPB-08, OPC-01 and OPD-05, based on the level of polymorphism are most informative. Diverse genotypes like IG-14, IG-17, IG-7 and IG-22 identified from diverse clusters of UPGMA dendrogram can be used as parents in future hybridization programme.