GENETIC VARIABILITY STUDIES USING PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS AND SINGLE LINKAGE CLUSTER ANALYSIS FOR GROWTH, YIELD AND QUALITY IN STRAWBERRY (FRAGARIA x ANANASSA) AT UPPER PULNEY HILLS OF SOUTHERN INDIA

Strawberry (Fragaria X ananassa), an important soft fruit of the world, is widely cultivated in temperate and subtropical zones of India. In the southern state seemingly s of India, however, its cultivation is limited due to non-availability of suitable cultivars adapted to the local agro-climate. In this study, we evaluated twenty vegetative, yield and fruit quality parameters in 14 strawberry genotypes having diverse eco-geographic origins at Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, India-a potential zone for strawberry cultivation. We assessed the genetic variability between the genotypes as a prerequisite for breeding improvement. Mean performance of the genotypes showed presence of variability. Highest fruit yield was observed in cultivars Nabila (1268.98 g), Katrain Sweet (1161.91 g) and Camarosa (1158.85 g). These genotypes also had better fruit quality parameters. In principal components analysis (PCA), four principal components (PC) with Eigen score > 1 accounted for 90.4% of the total variation. The PC1 explained 61.3% of total variability and mainly contributed by number of flowers, number of leaves, number of fruits per plant and leaflets per plant. In Mahalanobis D2 analysis, the genotypes were grouped in five clusters. Cluster III had the highest intra cluster variability (intra cluster distance = 5248.16). Between clusters variability was the highest between clusters II and III (inter cluster distance = 8900.17). The genotypes in cluster IV (Nabila, Katrain Sweet and Camarosa) were better performers with high mean fruit yield per plant (1196.58 g) and other yield and quality parameters. Selection based on major contributing characters in PCA and the clustered strawberry genotypes in SCLA would be ideal. The genotypes Nabila, Katrain Sweet and Camarosa are best suited to this location and can be used in future breeding programmes.