Morphological diversity in brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) germplasm accessions

Abstract

Brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) is an important solanaceous vegetable in many countries of Asia and Africa. It is a good source of minerals and vitamins in the tropical diets. Assessment of genetic resources is the starting point of any crop improvement programme. In India, the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources is the nodal institute for management of germplasm resources of crop plants and holds more than 2500 accessions of brinjal in its genebank. In the present study, morphological diversity in a set of 622 accessions, comprising 543 accessions from indigenous sources and 79 accessions of exotic origin, was assessed. Wide range of variations for 31 descriptors, 13 quantitative and 18 qualitative, were recorded. The wide regional variations for plant, flower and fruit descriptors revealed enough scope for improvement of yield characters by selection. The genetic differences among the landraces are potentially relevant to breeding programmes in that the variability created through hybridization of the contrasting forms could be exploited.

Multi-Level Characterization of Eggplant Accessions from Greek Islands and the Mainland Contributes to the Enhancement and Conservation of this Germplasm and Reveals a Large Diversity and Signatures of Differentiation between both Origins

“…For example, the PIC value in the whole collection ranged from 0.39 to 0.75 with a mean value of 0.55. This value is higher than those observed in previous studies [36,45,72,73], while it was lower than those calculated by Hurtado et al [35] and Cericola et al [34]. A PIC value greater than 0.5 indicates loci of high polymorphism, PIC values between 0.25 and 0.5 indicate loci of intermediate polymorphism, and PIC values less than 0.25 indicate loci of low polymorphism [72].…”

“…Plants were characterized using 22 morphological descriptors for plant (4), leaf (6), flower (1), and fruit (11) traits obtained from the EGGNET descriptor list, of the EU-RESGEN PL 98-113 program [42,43], Biodiversity International (formerly International Board for Plant Genetic Resources) [44], and Kumar et al [45] descriptors lists ( Table 2). For all the traits, four measures were made per plant, except for plant traits, in which one measurement was made.…”

“…Descriptors used for phenotyping of Greek eggplant accessions and their range/scale. All descriptors based on IBPGR descriptors [44], except NOLFF [42,43] and DSFS [45].…”

“…Many studies assessed the genetic diversity and population structure of local varieties collections from different origins using SSRs [34][35][36]45,70,71]. The SSR markers used, were highly informative and effective for genetic diversity analysis.…”

Assessing diversity among traditional Greek and foreign eggplant cultivars using molecular markers and morphometrical descriptors

“…black, green, purple, striped and white, long, cylindrical, egg shaped etc. existing today (Kumar et al, 2008;Muñoz-Falcón et al, 2009).…”