STUDIES ON HERITABILITY AND MULTIVARIATE ANALYSES IN BRINJAL (SOLANUM MELONGENA L.)

Thirty one accessions of brinjal were assessed for heritability and genetic divergence for fourteen characters. Highly significant differences were observed among the accessions High phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation was observed for number of leaves per plant, leaf area index, number of fruits per plant, average fruit length, average fruit diameter, fruit yield per plant, fruit yield per plot, fruit yield per hectare. Almost all the characters exhibited high heritability except for plant height (51%) and moderate to low heritability was recorded for average fruit weight (24%). Highest genetic advance as percent of mean was observed for almost all the characters except for days to first flower-ing, days to first picking, plant height and average fruit weight recorded moder-ate to low genetic advance as per cent of mean. These thirty one accessions of brinjal were assessed for genetic diversity by adopting Mahalanobis (D2) statis-tics considering fourteen characters were grouped into 6 clusters. Multivariate analyses revealed maximum divergence among the clusters signifying their role in exploitation of heterosis.