Journal of Hill Agriculture

Genetic divergence in 35 genotypes of bell pepper was worked out using Mahalanobis D² statistics to identify the potential parents to be involved in the hybridization programme so that superior segregants can be selected in the segregating generations. Thirty five genotypes of bell pepper were grouped into four clusters revealing moderate genetic diversity among parents. Maximum numbers of genotypes were accommodated in cluster IV. Average intracluster distance was found maximum in cluster III (3.222) and minimum in cluster II (2.249). The inter cluster distance was maximum to the tune of 5.994 between cluster III and IV and minimum 2.643 between cluster II and IV, indicating that hybridization between the genotypes from cluster III and IV can be utilized for getting superior recombinants/transgressive segregants in segregating generations of bell peppers. Cluster means of various characters depicted that Cluster III was found superior for the traits like number of fruits per plant and plant height. While the best cluster mean of important traits viz., fruit length, fruit breadth, average fruit weight, pericarp thickness, number of seeds per fruit, number of lobes per fruit, minimum capsaicin content and fruit yield per plant were found in cluster IV.