Genetic diversity study of bacterial wilt-tolerant bell pepper (Capsicum annuum) genotypes using cluster and principal component analysis

The present study was carried out during summer and rainy (kharif) seasons of 2019 and 2020 at the research farm of Himachal Pradesh Krishi Vishvavidyalaya, Palampur, Himachal Pradesh to study the genetic diversity among 43 bacterial wilt tolerant genotypes of bell pepper (Capsicum annuum L. var. grossum Sendt), focusing on 12 quantitative and 3 qualitative traits along with disease resistance. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with 3 replications. Following hierarchical cluster analysis, the 43 unique genotypes were categorized into 5 separate clusters. Cluster I consisted of maximum number of genotypes (39), followed by clusters II, III, IV and V, each having only one genotype. The greatest inter-cluster distance was observed between cluster II and V (3090.70), while the smallest distance was noted between cluster II and III (1299.21). Cluster I displayed the greatest intra-cluster distance (803.75), while clusters II, III, IV and V showed the lowest distances (0.00). The primary contributors to genetic divergence were found to be capsanthin content (23.4%), followed by ascorbic acid (21.4%), fruit length (12.5%), plant survival (11.1%) and marketable fruit yield/plant (10.9%). Principal component analysis indicated that the initial six principal components, each possessing an eigen value surpassing one, jointly accounted for 70.62% of the total observed variability. PCA biplot revealed that, the traits namely, marketable fruits/plant, average fruit weight, harvest duration and plant height were the major yield contributing traits. The results underscored the importance of genetic characterization and the selection of diverse genotypes for hybridization, facilitating the development of improved bell pepper cultivars with enhanced productivity and quality.