Genetic diversity evaluation of brinjal germplasms for varietal improvement

A field experiment was conducted with 72 brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) germplasms at the Plant Genetic Resources Centre (PGRC) of BARI, Joydebpur, Gazipur, to assess the variability among the germplasms. A wide variation in genetic diversity was observed in both qualitative and quantitative characters studied. Qualitatively all the germplasms showed distinct variation except leaf hairs, corolla colour, fruit cross section and fruit position. The maximum variation observed in overall leaf prickles, fruit calyx prickles, fruit colour at ripening and fruit flesh density. The variability was maximum in leaf prickles. Five categories of leaf prickles were found such as very few (4.17%), few (51.39%), intermediate (26.39%), many (8.33%) and very many (9.72%) in the studied germplasms. Quantitatively the highest variation was observed in 100 seed weight (CV- 67.91%) which was followed by yield per plant (CV-62.40) and number of fruits per plant (CV-59.93%). Based on yield and yield-contributing parameters, the germplasms K 21 (1116.67 g), K 24 (1221.67 g), and RAI 230 (1680.83 g) were identified as the top performers in terms of yield.