Genetic diversity in bird eye chilli (Capsicum Frutescens L.) germplasm

Thirty one genotypes of bird eye chilli were used to study the nature of genetic divergence for 12 economically important characters. Diversity studies was carried out using Mahalanobis D² statistics method. From the D² statistics the genotypes were grouped into seven clusters. Cluster IV included maximum seven genotypes. The highest dissimilarity was observed between cluster III and VII with inter cluster distance of 1162.62. Cluster IV and VI had the lowest dissimilarity (33.76).Intercrossing of genotypes A14, A16, A17, A19 of cluster III and genotypes A23, A31, A30, A21, A28 of cluster VII is expected to result in high heterosis.